CHARLES DICKENS 



VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES 

Published and In Preparation 

Edited by Will D. Howe 



Arnold Stuart P. Sherman 

Browning William Lyon Phelps 

Burns William Allan Neilson 

Carlyle Bliss Perry 

Dante Alfred M. Brooks 

Defoe William P. Trent 

Dickens Richard Burton 

Emerson Samuel M. Crothers 

Hawthorne George Edward Woodberry 

The Bible George Hodges 

Ibsen Archibald Henderson 

Lamb Will D. Howe 

Lowell John H. Finley 

Stevenson Richard A. Rice 

Tennyson Raymond Macdonald Alden 

Whitman Brand Whitlock 

Wordsworth C. T. Winchester 



CHARLES DICKENS 



By 
RICHARD BURTON 



AUTHOR OF 

Forces in Fiction, Etc. 



WITH POPTRAIT 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1919 
The Bobbs- Merrill Company 



V •. « 



f 



& 






PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y, 



©GLA515516 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



I A Threshold View 1 

II The Man 7 

III Finding Himself: The Maker of 

Mirthful Scene and Character 33 

IV Early Novels 68 

V Maturity 95 

VI Dickens as Artist 247 

VII Dickens as Reformer 269 

VIII The Crier Up of Loving Kindness .... 282 

IX A Last Word 293 

Index 303 



CHARLES DICKENS 



DICKENS 

CHAPTER I 
A Threshold View 

THE facade of a quaint little building in Lin- 
coln's Inn Field, London, bears the following 
words: "Old Curiosity Shop; immortalized by 
Charles Dickens." This is not the original build- 
ing in which the writer set his famous story. And 
the language is that of hyperbole. No writer is 
known to be immortal, inasmuch as we who call 
him so must be ourselves immortal to pronounce 
judgment. Nor has any writer of them yet learned 
the trick of perpetuity. When we call Shakespeare 
or Homer "immortal," we mean, and can only mean, 
that a certain author has survived the obliteration 
of time a few hundred or a few thousand years, a 
mere nothing in the great onward sweep of the 
universe; indeed, not much in the course of the 
established records of men. 

Nevertheless, that inscription above the portal in 
Portsmouth Street is significant. It gives a hint 
of the hold of Dickens upon the affectionate inter- 

1 



2 DICKENS 

ests of readers. He is one of the very few authors 
using English who, more than a century after his 
birth, seem secure in a general regard, and whose 
works not merely have their place in any well-regu- 
lated library, but are in some sort a household pos- 
session to countless lovers of books. It begins to 
look very much as if the works of Charles Dickens 
were more than those of a representative author of 
the early Victorian period ; being, so far as we may 
use the word, a permanent contribution to the liter- 
ature of the English-speaking peoples. Nay, since 
this writer 5 3 known and loved far beyond English- 
speaking borders, he is, I believe, a world force in 
letters. When I was a student in Germany, I found 
everywhere upon the reading tables of cultivated 
folk the books of just two English-using authors : 
Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. The wife of the 
leading astronomer of Holland told rac that she 
had brought up her husband and all her children 
on Dickens's works, having read them aloud to 
the family no less than six times through! Such 
facts speak for themselves. His -position solidifies 
with time, though the critical estimate of him shows 
its fluctuations. But to-day, critically, and by popu- 
lar tests, he is — with the possible exception of 
Shakespeare — the most widely known and most be- 
loved writer of his race. Shakespeare, if our rela- 
tion to him is less personal and warm, has more of 
magisterial weight; he is read perforce by the many 



A THRESHOLD VIEW 3 

in school and college ; his plays are in libraries as a 
matter of course. The cultivated few read him for 
pleasure. About half his plays, hardly more, are 
really alive in the theater. 

But among those who read for no other reason 
than for enjoyment (and what a vast host they 
make!), Dickens unquestionably comes first. As 
near as it can be said of any one person, he is the 
modern English author. Whatever his faults, the 
immense fervor of life in his books and their steady 
appeal to men's bosom interests and passions make 
him a primate among English book men. The sense 
of all this was crystallized and accentuated in 1912, 
when the centenary of his birf I was celebrated with 
such ample and enthusiastic recognition. It was no 
conventional remembering, but a tribute having in 
it plain elements of heartfelt spontaneity. 

For a time after his death he lost ground with the 
critics, though never with the general reading pub- 
lic, in comparison with his contemporary, and in a 
sense his rival, Thackeray. These two, so utterly 
unlike in every way, are inevitably contrasted be- 
cause they were distinctly the two leading authors 
in the middle nineteenth century; and also because 
the popularity of Thackeray, when he began to write 
his great books, was the first challenge to Dickens's 
unique place in the suffrages of readers of fiction in 
that period. 

Gradually, Thackeray came more and more to be 



4 DICKENS 

regarded as the artist of fiction, while Dickens, to 
whom a genius for the comic was readily granted, 
was denied the artistic quality awarded to the other. 
He was referred to increasingly as a careless work- 
man, a writer who did not command style as did 
Thackeray, and one whose tendencies toward the 
theatric and the didactic injured his craftsmanship. 
This view gained such a vogue among those who 
put themselves in a critical attitude toward books 
that not many years ago, I am credibly informed, 
in a famous eastern university a course in nine- 
teenth-century literature was offered in which no 
mention of Dickens was made. 

But within the last few years a reaction, distinct 
and strong, from this depreciation, has come about. 
Critics like Andrew Lang, William E. Henley, 
George Gissing and C. K. Chesterton, widely di- 
vergent in type and view, but trained observers all 
and of commanding influence, have come forth in 
valiant appreciation of the man of Gadshill. And 
they are a unit in this : that while they are not blind 
to the faults of their author, they recognize the 
dominant and representative quality of a man of 
genius who has done great things and still exercises 
an indubitable magic. 

Two antithetic literary attitudes or concepts of 
literature lie behind these two estimates of Dickens : 
that which looked at him askance and did him scant 
justice, and the later and present one, which most 



A THRESHOLD VIEW 5 

heartily cries up his undiminished worth. The for- 
mer has implicit in it that conception of literature 
which insists that it shall not involve questions of 
conduct nor drag in moral issues ; but rather confine 
itself alone to the quality of workmanship. What 
a writer may choose to exhibit is primarily his af- 
fair; how he does it is the business of the critic. 
This critical position has been popular in our pres- 
ent generation, and some twenty years ago seemed 
authoritative. "Art for art's sake" was a catch 
phrase frequently heard, and to praise any writer 
for a healthful view or an obvious desire to do good 
by his writings was deemed rococo. Oscar Wilde 
will, perhaps, be pointed to historically as the logical 
extreme of this critical attitude. And a definite new 
school of English fiction marched under this gon- 
falon. 

The recent reaction from this means a realization 
that, after all, life is larger than what is called art; 
that the artist of letters is only a man writing, and 
can not shake off the fact that he is a man, subject 
to the same obligations in his work as other human 
beings in theirs. Beauty, we are coming to see, is 
its own excuse for being only when it is vitally re- 
lated to the life without which it could not exist, 
since life furnishes, and always must furnish, the 
raw material from which art weaves its Nisus-like 
robe of wonder. 

And the return of this broader and saner view, 



6 DICKENS 

for such I believe it to be, has been of advantage 
to Dickens; because he, of all authors, has most 
openly insisted on relating his work to the toiling 
and moiling humanity he would serve, and has even 
boisterously asserted his wish to help the world by 
his books. His claim, for these reasons, upon our 
acceptance is a double claim : his unexampled power 
of visualizing the life of his time and giving us a 
sense of its gusto ; and his efficacy to touch the heart 
with pity and love, that we may realize the universal 
brotherhood and try to be a part of it. Frankly, 
Dickens is a master of the imagination, but just as 
truly a mighty moralist. He stands or falls by these 
twin tests. All his work suggests that literature, to 
make a wide and steady appeal, must do, not one of 
these things, but both of them. 

This prefatory broad statement will be amplified 
and illustrated, as he is considered in the particulars 
of his art and work, in the further critical treat- 
ment which follows the copious selections from his 
books. 



CHAPTER II 

The Man 

THE lives of some authors hardly seem to 
throw light upon their works. Especially is 
this true in the case of novelists and dramatists, 
who in these objective forms of expression hide 
behind their characters and do not reveal the maker 
of these characters. It may, however, be premised 
that, even when the literary form is less subjective 
and personal, and the personality of the writer 
harder to detect, all authors are so interwoven with 
their works that, had we a magic glass to look with- 
in their minds and be aware of their every act, with 
its corresponding motive, we should find that the 
literature they made was but veiled autobiography, 
after all. 

But some authors, far more frankly than others, 
put themselves into their writings, are integrally a 
part of it, can not be separated from it; so that a 
sympathetic comprehension of their personality and 
a knowledge of the story of their life is of great 
assistance in the way it aids us to understand their 
professional labor. 

7 



8 DICKENS 

Dickens was emphatically such a man, and we 
may therefore set down the chief matters of his life, 
confident that they will be of avail in the apprecia- 
tion of his books. His life story is in itself of 
compelling interest; its interpretative value may be 
added as an incentive, were any needed, to follow 
those details which are of particular significance, 
looked back upon from the place of light and lead- 
ership he attained. 

When we say of a human being that he is self- 
made, we are using a rather shallow phrase, since 
we are all self-made, so far as we are made at all. 
What is really meant by the stock expression is that 
in such a case, more than is normal, character has 
triumphed over circumstances. In education, for 
example, we imply that it has been irregular or 
lacking in the conventional drill; as to parentage, 
that the person in question was not born with a 
silver spoon in his mouth. These supposed limita- 
tions are true of Charles Dickens, whose father was 
a clerk in the Navy Department, in Portsmouth, 
when the son was born on February 7, 1812. That 
father, who was to be twice immortalized as Mi- 
ca wber in David Copper field and the Father of the 
Marshalsea in Little Dorrit, was an impecunious op- 
timist whose frequent changes of occupations and 
inability to pay his rent were external signs of a 
character which may be described, at least in retro- 
spect, as one of lovable weakness. Restricted, im- 



THE MAN 9 

poverished, shabby genteel as was the life of the 
family, it is impossible to study the Dickens menage 
at close range without the feeling that John Dickens 
was, in his way, a gentleman. The letter following 
shows just what is meant better than any words; 
no vulgarian could have penned it. It was written 
to Chapman and Hall, long time the publishers of 
Dickens's novels : 

"34 Edward Street, Portman Square. 
"Gentlemen — It has occurred to me, at a mo- 
ment of some difficulty, you may be willing to ex- 
tend to me your obliging assistance. If it is con- 
sistent or convenient with your arrangements, will 
you do me the favor to deduct the four pounds I 
owe you from the enclosed bill for twenty pounds 
due April 7, with three shillings, four pence, the 
amount of the interest, and let me have the balance, 
fifteen pounds, fifteen shillings? Do not suppose I 
ask this on any other footing than that of obligation 
conferred upon me; and I assure you, though small 
in amount, its effects to me are matters of grave 
consideration, because anything that would occasion 
my absence from the Gallery would be productive of 
fatal effects. You may consider it an intrusion that 
I should apply to you in a moment of difficulty. I 
feel it to be so ; but, recollecting how much your in- 
terests are bound up with those of my son, I flatter 
myself that if you can confer a favor upon the 



/ 



10 DICKENS 

father without transgressing any rule that you have 
laid down, and that without inconvenience, you may 
feel disposed to do so. I do not enhance it when I 
say that the favor, though small, yet under the cir- 
cumstances would be a signal obligation conferred 
on me. Gentlemen, 

"Your obliged and obedient servant, 

"John Dickens." 

No lover of Charles Dickens can miss the deli- 
cious Micawberish flavor of this composition; as 
Percy Fitzgerald points out, it might with hardly a 
change appear in the pages of Copper field. 

Mrs. Dickens, too, was a lady, however acidulous 
of temper; the fact that at one time when the fam- 
ily fortunes were at ebb tide (if the figure may be 
used, when full tide seems never to have come), she 
set up as principal of a female academy, points the 
same way of gentility. The frequent references to 
Dickens's background as altogether wretched and 
common need to be qualified by these facts and 
inferences. His people were poor folk of the upper 
middle class, neither more nor less. 

The difficulties of John Dickens in the practical 
matter of supporting his family had its effect upon 
the little Charles; it gave him scant schooling, little 
of the tender nurture and none of the luxury and 
privilege of a more fortunate youth. He was left 
much alone, apparently; was thrown in on himself, 



THE MAN 11 

which was not all bad for an imaginative child of 
reading habit. Externally the life was a series of 
shabby lodgings, in Portsmouth, Rochester, Chat- 
ham, and then London. But in what the elder Dick- 
ens grandiloquently referred to as his "library," 
meaning a shelf of well-worn books in a corner of 
the living-room, was fodder of the best for a future 
man of letters: The Arabian Nights, and Don 
Quixote, Swift and Sterne, Goldsmith and Crusoe, 
and the eighteenth-century novelists, Richardson, 
Fielding and Smollett. Herein browsed the little 
lad, rarely joining his playmates in the field sports 
outside; delicate, handsome, self -communing, he 
lived the life of dreams and of imagination. We 
know Smollett in special was his favorite, a very 
important thing to bear in mind in studying his ca- 
reer as writer, particularly its beginning. And of 
his style in general, it is not too much to say that 
it was based more than any one other influence on 
these eighteenth-century worthies; no bad literary 
progenitors, it will be confessed. 

Given the sort of boy he was, impressionable, 
bookish, idealistic, two dark places in his early life 
may be emphasized for the light they throw. One 
is his brief term of employment, at the age of ten, 
in a shoe-blacking establishment, where his task in 
a dank cellar was to fill bottles with the viscous 
fluid for a wage of six shillings a week — pay so 
poor that the midday meal was omitted at times. 



12 DICKENS 

Dickens, the famous author, quivered sensitively 
when he mentioned this episode to his biographer, 
Forster; in his own home he never referred to it. 
It was a loathsome job, and he felt humiliated even 
by the memory of it. Some lads would have minded 
it less; there is nothing intrinsically degrading in 
such work. That Dickens took it as he did would 
seem to accentuate a sort of natural refinement and 
longing for what was fine and beautiful and ro- 
mantic which was ingrain with him. He was natu- 
rally a peculiarly sensitive, high-strung fellow, deli- 
cate in his tastes, instinctively seeking what was 
gentle and gentlemanly. The other harsh thing was 
his early experience of the debtors' prison, the Mar- 
shalsea, where his father was immured for several 
years and where the boy Charles visited him often. 
Here again, the effect of the place upon such a na- 
ture as his must have been one of poignant pain; 
bitterly shameful the thought that his father was 
there as an enforced inmate! 

One of the pictures we get of him is that of a 
sensitive-featured boy with his hair falling over his 
face in ringlets, walking grimy streets to and fro 
between his lodging and that prison. Another pic- 
ture shows us the little Charles, with his ingratiat- 
ing ways and attractive personality, frequenting 
pawn-shops to raise cash on such household goods 
of the family as might have some value. Who can 
doubt that at the base of the novelist's wonderful 



THE MAN 13 

power of envisaging the odds and ends of humanity 
lay these early experiences ? Or that the sympathy 
which was the motor force of all he wrote was gen- 
erated by the dark and stressful days of his youth 
and young manhood? A fellow feeling makes us 
wondrous kind. 

At sixteen we see him as office boy to an attor- 
ney; here, in less than two years' time, he acquired 
that knowledge of the lower world, observed at close 
range — for he was the keenest of observers — yet 
half instinctive, too, which comes forth so richly and 
delightfully in some of the great books, notably 
Bleak House, but also Old Curiosity Shop, Copper- 
field, Oliver Twist, The Tale of Two Cities, and 
others still. Dickens worked hard in this capacity, 
as he always did in whatever he undertook. His 
honorable sense of doing thoroughly what he was 
at is one of the denotements of his character. He 
studied stenography of nights, painfully acquiring 
the power of shorthand reporting. His father at 
this time was a shorthand reporter in the House of 
Commons, which is another testimonial to his parts ; 
and the son may perhaps have felt that this was a 
possibility for him as well; for the law he never 
thought of as a potential profession. He was, too, 
practising authorship during these days, we may 
well believe; ambitious, full of dreams, eager to 
prove his quality, with his brain already teeming 
with the vision of London types and scenes. He 



14 DICKENS 

was observing in a way that was to bear fruit in the 
Sketches by Boz, in Pickwick Papers and in the 
earliest novels. 

Soon leaving the attorney's dim-lighted chambers, 
at nineteen he took his place, like his father, in the 
reporter's gallery of the House, and rapidly became 
known as the best journalist employed for that pur- 
pose ; one who could be trusted to get his copy back 
to the city in time for press, wherever over England 
he had gone to chronicle political gatherings. By 
this activity, his knowledge of men and things, and 
of Nature's face under all possible circumstances, 
was broadened and enriched. His own description 
of this newspaper life gives a lively idea of the na- 
ture of his occupation. It was all good preparation, 
albeit unconscious (perhaps the better for that rea- 
son) for the future writer and depicter of humanity. 
He began, with fear and trembling, to write out 
these observations and note-book jottings, and we 
get a picturesque account of how he surreptitiously 
dropped a manuscript into a letter box in Fleet 
Street and of the wild delight that filled him when 
it was accepted by a magazine. Here was the be- 
ginning of what was to eventuate in the first book, 
the Sketches by Boz, the collection of character 
studies, scenes and tales with which Dickens made 
his literary bow at the age of twenty- four, though 
much of the contents of the volume was written 
during the preceding years, when he was hardly 



THE MAN 15 

more than a boy. One of Charles's brothers was 
Moses by name; this was affectionately contracted 
to "Mos," after the familiar manner of family life. 
If you pronounce "Mos" with a cold in your head, 
it sounds like Boz; and we get the origin of the pen 
name used in our writer's first book; incidentally, 
too, we get a suggestion that the word has the long 
sound instead of the short one commonly given it 
to-day. 

Sketches by Boz, in comparison with the mature 
work of Dickens, is exactly like the preliminary 
studio studies of a coming great painter. The tales, 
sketches, scenes and character delineations which 
make it up have the keen observational eye so typi- 
cal of the author; the lively sense of humor of the 
external kind (the kind that rests in appearances), 
and the feeling for the dramatic contrasts of life. 
Potentially, you feel that Charles Dickens is here; 
yet such was his subsequent growth in depth, breadth 
and fellow feeling that you mark the immaturity of 
this firstling of his genius. The Sketches bear about 
the same relation to the Dickens of Copper field and 
Our Mutual Friend that George Eliot's Scenes from 
Clerical Life bear to The Mill on the Floss and Mid- 
dlemarch. 

It was The Old Monthly Magazine to which he 
had sent that contribution, A Dinner' in Poplar 
Walk, not included afterward in the Boz sketches. 
Mr. Hogarth, the managing editor of The Morn- 



16 DICKENS 

ing Chronicle, with which the young author was 
then engaged, thought highly of the Boz papers; 
and the mention of Hogarth's name serves to intro- 
duce another vastly important aspect of Charles 
Dickens's life, for the connection with the Hogarths 
qualified his whole after life. 

It was natural that the young writer should have 
been admitted on terms of familiarity to the Ho- 
garth home, where three agreeable girls, daughters 
of the house, were ready to welcome and make much 
of him. The eldest, Catherine, he was to marry; 
the youngest, Mary, who died at seventeen, in the 
sweet bloom of her youth, he tenderly loved and 
memorialized as Little Nell ; the third sister, Georg- 
ina, remained as his life-long friend and house mate 
up to the day of his death, and only passed away 
herself in 1917. Why Dickens chose the less ethe- 
real Catherine, in the light of subsequent happen- 
ings, will always remain a mystery. In a sketch of 
the author by two Frenchmen, Messieurs Keim and 
Lumet, an acute remark is made to the effect that 
Dickens at this period was in love with love rather 
than with a specific woman. He had been lonely, 
neglected ; suddenly he entered into the heart-warm- 
ing society of attractive girls, and was sensitively 
responsive to all that it meant. The woman who 
was his choice was his faithful companion for years, 
and bore him ten children. There was no scandal 



THE MAN 17 

involved in their'separation, which occurred in 1857. 
The whole story will never be known ; in truth, can 
the inner psychology of such experiences ever be 
revealed? But when the reader is asking himself 
why Charles Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, 
he must not for a moment forget that the young 
writer had a love romance. Two years before his 
marriage in 1836, he had met Maria Beadwell, 
daughter of a wealthy banker, and fallen romantic- 
ally in love with her. The family, not unnaturally, 
objected ; the girl was sent to Paris. Returning, she 
renewed relations with him, letters being exchanged 
through the kind intermediary of a friend. Then 
the family again stepped in, this time finally, and 
Maria, who does not appear to have cared over- 
much, definitely gave her lover up and married one 
Winter, a wealthy merchant. That this affair was 
serious with Dickens we know ; his passionate love- 
letters have of late been published (one of those 
publications which we welcome, because of the im- 
mense autobiographic value, and yet shrink from, 
as seeming too sacredly personal for the world's 
gaze) ; and when, twenty years afterward, the lady 
in question wrote the great novelist, he responded 
in a way to show that the young idyl remained such 
still in his memory. They met, and the illusion was 
gone forever. Alas, the Maria of the young dream 
was portly, scant of breath, and, far worse, rather 



18 DICKENS 

simpering and commonplace. She who was Dora, 
the child wife of Copperfield, became the silly Mrs. 
Finching of Little Dorr it. 

With this episode in mind, it is impossible not to 
inquire if Catherine Hogarth were chosen in con- 
trast with, in reaction from, the Dora fragile butter- 
fly type ; Catherine being the Agnes who succeeded 
the earlier and lighter girl? It is at least a plausible 
conjecture; and, in any case, the Beadwell episode 
can never be overlooked in any attempt to under- 
stand the heart history of Charles Dickens. At the 
age of twenty- four, then, Dickens married. His 
sketches and papers, later to be brought together 
under the pen name of "Boz," had been appearing 
for some three years and had met with some favor, 
though by no means creating any sensation. They 
were issued in book form this year of his marriage 
and attracted favorable attention to the clever young 
journalist, without setting the Thames afire. But 
Dickens was earning what was for those days a very 
good income by his journalistic connections and 
these occasional contributions of his pen to imagi- 
native letters. He had a right to enter matrimony, 
yet felt that his spurs were to win, that he must 
labor hard to express what was in him, and to sup- 
port his prospective family properly. He was of 
the type to be stimulated, not discouraged, in the 
fact that he had given hostages to fortune. Mean- 
while, the opportunity offered which was to result 



THE MAN 19 

in a book that at a bound made him a national figure, 
starting him on the long and splendid career of 
nearly forty years as public entertainer, counselor, 
reformer, and friend. The familiar story of the 
genesis of Pickwick must be here retold once more. 

Chapman and Hall, the publishers so long to be 
honorably identified with Dickens, had brought out 
his Boz sketches. They proposed to the noted cari- 
caturist, Seymour, who wished to do a series of 
sporting scenes for them, that he should get the 
cooperation of Dickens in the way of letter-press. 
They thought well enough of his lively pen to select 
him for the task. The pay was fourteen pounds 
for each monthly instalment; it meant an addition 
of nearly one hundred dollars a month to the young 
husband's income (remember that each dollar 
bought more then than it does now), and Dickens 
gladly accepted. It is interesting to see that at the 
beginning of this famous bargain the pictures were 
the main thing; later, when Pickwick was born and 
Sam Weller began to talk, the tail wagged the dog, 
the letter-press ran away with the illustrations, to 
which may be added the tragic fact that Seymour, 
like so many humorists a man of melancholy dis- 
position, committed suicide after the first issue — 
the no less famed Phiz going on with that aspect 
of the joint work in pictures now world known and 
loved. 

At first the thing rather hung fire; Seymour's 



20 DICKENS 

tragic withdrawal was a bad effect in itself; and 
Dickens's early pages did not arouse immediate wide 
interest. Then, enter the beloved Sam Weller, and 
from that moment the success of Pickwick was as- 
sured. The young writer, the husband who could 
not brook failure, was able to draw a deep breath 
in the knowledge that he really had something to 
say which England, not merely literary critics and 
his fellow journalists, but the great general reading 
public was eager and glad to hear. From that mo- 
ment the anxieties of Charles Dickens, writer, so 
far as the question of his reception by the world 
was concerned, were over. 

The remainder of Dickens's life was, externally 
viewed, that of a famous literary man, courted, be- 
loved, and honored to a degree seldom witnessed 
in literary annals. His books with scarcely an ex- 
ception, and there were, from Pickwick to the un- 
finished Mystery of Edwin Drood, sixteen of them, 
only added to his reputation and helped to amass 
the considerable fortune acquired by his pen between 
1836 and 1870, his death year. * Looked at from 
without, and making a generalization, we might say 
that it is the record of one of Fortune's favorites, 
a sort of English wunderkind. And it may be added 
that Dickens himself enjoyed it all enormously, for 
his was a nature peculiarly gifted in that sympa- 
thetic appreciation of this world and all it embraces 



THE MAN 21 

which insures vivid living. Dickens could have said 
earlier what Bernard Shaw has said in our time: 
"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die." In- 
deed, he was, for he had lived intensely during his 
eight and fifty years. As he prospered in this 
world's goods, his manner of life kept pace with 
his increased means, and he lived more genially, on 
a more generous scale. His successive residences, 
Tavistock House, Devonshire Terrace, and the final 
country place famed as Gadshill, where the au- 
thor in his maturity was able to inhabit a house his 
father had shown him as a boy and prophesied his 
ownership of, were outward indications of his sub- 
stantial progress in a worldly sense. Dickens lived 
freely and handsomely as his income increased ; his 
large family entailed an expensive establishment, 
and to the day of his death he felt the need of 
lashing his remarkable powers of production in or- 
der to keep up the scale of living and provide for 
others at his departure. He found in his public 
readings a way to add substantially to his fortunes, 
and doubtless his efforts in this field shortened his 
days. Some, including close friends, 'resented his 
doing this as below his dignity as a great author. 
Others attribute it to his greed for gold. It must 
be remembered that, even with the money thus ac- 
quired, Dickens's fortune amounted to less than half 
a million of American money; surely not sufficient 



22 DICKENS 

to justify the charge, in view of his being for a 
generation by all odds the best remunerated English 
author. 

In attempting to come close to the man and un- 
derstand his personality in relation to those common 
human experiences which mean life for us all, cer- 
tain events and characteristics stand out for em- 
phasis. Throughout his writing days, this author 
worked very hard at his adopted profession of let- 
ters, and there is always a sense of struggle as one 
follows his life-story, year by year. He took him- 
self and his work seriously, and strove with all his 
powers to improve his gift and develop such skill 
as to make himself worthy of the great influence 
he exercised over his readers. No man of letters 
was more conscientious in this way than he; and 
it should be borne in mind when we ask, What of 
Dickens's artistry? Whatever the skill in crafts- 
manship he attained, however short he fell of the 
full perfection of his art, it was not done carelessly; 
he tried his very best to make himself a fine work- 
man in the novel as a literary form. Thackeray, 
of the two, took his craft the more debonairly; 
there can be no doubt of this, after a careful study 
of the two careers. In judging Dickens's- books, too, 
it must always be remembered that he, as well as 
Thackeray, was under constant journalistic pres- 
sure and did not give his work the shaping fore- 
thought, at times, and the revision which a latter 



THE MAN 23 

day would demand. His stories were serialized and 
written with that fact in mind ; a regrettable thing, 
for it sometimes meant undue haste, and the subor- 
dination of parts to the whole, which makes for 
symmetry. It is beyond doubt that Dickens's work 
suffered in some measure for this reason. Any 
literary man is to be judged by the standards and 
conditions of his time, and the generation of these 
two major Victorian novelists was easy-going in 
these respects compared with our own. For a large 
part of his literary life, too, Dickens was the editor 
of important publications; not an editor who makes 
a sinecure of his position, but one who really 
"slogged at his trade," giving fully of his time and 
strength. He edited Household Words, and later 
All the Year Round. That he shaped his own writ- 
ings to the exigencies of his magazines can not be 
questioned. A critic who studied the fiction of 
Dickens in relation to its serial appearance and noted 
to what extent the author wrought with this neces- 
sity before him, would do much service to Dickens!s 
study. The need to arrange climaxes, for example, 
in such wise as to prove most effective at the end 
of an instalment, would condition the technic of 
the story as a whole. Dickens here did what lead- 
ing authors have prevailingly done; he allowed 
financial considerations to qualify his artistic ideal. 
He is to be blamed neither more nor less than the 
others. 



24 DICKENS 

In 1857 Dickens was separated from his wife, the 
Catherine Hogarth of his early days of friendship 
with the editor's family. They had lived together 
nearly a quarter of a century, she had reared a 
large family and met faithfully and with credit 
the varied demands made upon her position. The 
Gadshill menage had been established in 1857. 
Here, as in his earlier London residences, Tavistock 
House and Devonshire Terrace, Mrs. Dickens, with 
the assistance of her sister, Georgina Hogarth, had 
made a domestic atmosphere necessary to a man 
with such keen sympathies and natural household 
aptitudes as Charles Dickens; that it was a warm, 
pleasant, hospitable home life is attested by multi- 
farious contemporary participators therein. And 
in saying this, the curtain may properly be drawn. 
No scandal known to the world explains the rup- 
ture. Forster, the authoritative biographer, is dis- 
creet and tactful in his references; later recorders 
had best imitate him. One deplores Dickens's di- 
vorce as a sad incident in his life, and can but leave 
it in the privacy where it belongs. Dickens himself 
made a public statement in his magazine which many 
resented for its lack of reserve, but which the lovers 
of this great-hearted man, who realize his peculiar 
feeling of obligation to his audience, can under- 
stand and forgive — if forgiveness be called for. 
For reasons never likely to be known to the general, 



THE MAN 25 

the pair were incompatible by the time the author 
was forty-five years of age, in the prime of middle 
age. 

Two possible results of this domestic unhappiness 
may be touched upon, however, for the light cast on 
Dickens's work. A Tale of Two Cities is distin- 
guished among his books for the absence of a qual- 
ity which is our first association with the creator 
of Pickimck. It is a picturesque and powerful ro- 
mance almost entirely devoid of the humor which is 
a main characteristic of his other novels, even when, 
as with Oliver Twist or Martin Chuzzlewit, they 
are largely melodramatic and somber. In those and 
in fact in all the remaining stories, comic characters 
abound in prodigal plenty. It is significant, there- 
fore, that in A Tale of Two Cities they are prac- 
tically non-existent. When Dickens was writing 
this striking romance, he was undergoing the strain 
of the decision which led up to the separation of 
1857. The gestation and partial execution of the 
book belongs to this period. Too much need not 
be made of this, but that there is some connection 
is reasonable to assume. The author was in an 
unusually harassed and wretched state of mind; 
this is reflected in some of his letters to friends. 
Why should not such a psychic condition have its 
effect upon the imaginative work he was then en- 
gaged upon ? The Rembrandt-like tone of the pic- 



26 DICKENS 

ture, and the nobly tragic fate of Sidney Carton 
may well have been colored by the subjective ex- 
periences through which the writer was passing. 

The other point has to do with his lecture career. 
Dickens was the best amateur actor of his time, and 
when, under pressure from without, he began to 
read from his works, and found that he had tapped 
a new gold mine, he thereafter gave too much of 
his time and strength to the tours in the British 
Islands and the United States. It deflected him 
from his true metier of author. I have referred 
to the criticism, sometimes harsh, which this awoke. 
It was said that he sacrificed to the great god Mam- 
mon and that he was led astray by the popular ap- 
plause which came to him by this direct contact 
with the public. Here it may be remarked that a 
careful scrutiny of his private letters and the tes- 
timony of personal friends show plainly enough 
that his restless, unhappy state, following his do- 
mestic upheaval, offers at the least a partial ex- 
planation of his willingness to adopt the lecturer's 
itinerant life, indeed, stirred in him a fevered desire 
for the excitement of such work. We find him, 
for example, speaking to his friend, Wilkie Collins, 
in 1857, the annus miserabilis, of his "grim despair 
and restlessness of this subsidence from excite- 
ment," and to the same correspondent the next year, 
using this highly illuminating language in referring 
to a reading tour which was under way: "I can 



THE MAN 27 

not deny that I shall be heartily glad when it is all 
over, and that I miss the thought fulness of my 
quiet room and desk. But perhaps it is best for 
me not to have it just now, and to wear and toss 
my storm away — or as much of it as will ever calm 
down while the water rolls — in this restless man- 
ner." 

It seems beyond a doubt that Dickens's private 
sorrows entered in these ways into his literary life 
to affect both his work and the disposition of the 
years which remained to him after the change in 
his family affairs. 

An important part of Dickens's career as a reader 
was his American appearance in 1842, and nearly 
a generation later, in 1867-8. The first time he 
came as a young man of thirty, the second time as 
a mature man of six and fifty. The early trip, 
which was associated with Martin Chuzzlewit in 
that the American scenes in that story draw upon 
his experiences in the United States, made trouble 
for him with American readers, because of the sharp 
satiric strictures passed upon our new civilization, 
both in the novel and in the American Notes which 
were results of the visit. Looking back upon this 
from the vantage point of more than half a cen- 
tury, one can be fair to both parties in a controversy 
which for a time threatened seriously to check the 
love and admiration felt for the great English writer 
in this country, not a whit behind England in quick 



28 DICKENS 

and hearty appreciation of his genius. As to this 
frank expression of his opinions, it must be remem- 
bered that Dickens was not only a humorist but a 
satirist, if indeed the one does not of necessity in- 
clude the other. In presenting the social and eco- 
nomic life of England, with special reference to its 
abuse and neglect of the lower classes, he had never 
hesitated to reprimand and excoriate, where he 
deemed it helpful to do so. He was no cheap flat- 
terer. Similarly, as he began to study our crude 
manners and institutions in the administration of 
President Polk, he used the same frankness and 
freedom of comment and criticism, on the assump- 
tion that we Americans would understand he was, 
so to say, criticizing his own, a part of the English 
race. Moreover, Dickens at thirty lacked the tact 
and judgment of a man of fifty; he did not realize 
how touchy Americans are and always will be at 
strictures from beyond their own borders, and there- 
fore that it is well to refrain. In this respect, Dick- 
ens erred in telling some home truths with his in- 
comparable pen. 

But let us also confess that much that he objected 
to, and laughed at, was open to such attack. Our 
manners in 1842 as observed among the natives at 
large were often odious and shocking to refined 
sensibilities. The raucous voices, the thumb-in-the- 
armhole swagger, the painted faces of the ladies, 
the free expectoration of tobacco in surprising 



THE MAN 29 

places, the cheap jingoism of the newspapers, and, 
what particularly incensed the Englishman, the in- 
iquitous lack of international copyright, which en- 
abled unscrupulous publishers to batten off an 
author like Dickens without paying him a cent in 
compensation; these things and others equally dis- 
agreeable were for the seeing, and to speak of them 
was a matter of taste rather than of untruth. 

It is pleasant to reflect that, long after the smoke 
of battle had cleared away, and Dickens was re- 
ceiving the affectionate plaudits of all America dur- 
ing his tour of 1867-8, he made the amende honor- 
able, both in public utterance and in the Preface to 
Our Mutual Friend, wherein he set down his regard 
for this nation and his regret at his early indiscre- 
tion. It was a manly, straightforward thing to do, 
and like him. 

Dickens was badly shaken up and nerve-shocked 
in a railway accident which occurred at Staplehurst 
on June ninth, 1865, curiously enough the date of 
his death, five years later. It seems to be a fact 
that for the remainder of his days he was never 
quite the same again. His subsequent travels on 
the railways affected him as they had not done be- 
fore. "Since the Staplehurst experience I feel them 
very much," he wrote Collins. This made the wear 
and tear of the readings the greater, and was per- 
haps contributory to hastening his end. 

The personal relations of Thackeray and Dickens 



30 DICKENS 

can not but pique interest. In some sort and natu- 
rally rivals, they were for many years, at least ex- 
ternally, upon terms of cordial good feeling. Each 
spoke handsomely of the other's work, Thackeray 
especially going out of his way to say generous and 
praiseful things of Dickens. Few more charming 
letters exist than that in which Thackeray testifies 
to the devotion of his young daughters to Copper- 
field; it reminds one of the later and equally charm- 
ing testimony of Barrie to the effect of Stevenson's 
writings upon the former's mother, the Margaret 
Ogilvie of blessed memory. And when Thackeray 
died, in 1864, Dickens in Household Words paid 
the finest kind of a tribute to his great fellow au- 
thor. Shortly before Thackeray's passing, a tem- 
porary estrangement occurred, owing to a misun- 
derstanding over the admission to The Garrick Club 
of Edmund Yates. This quarrel, however, was 
happily cleared up before it was too late. 

It would be an exaggeration, nevertheless, to say 
that the relations of these two Victorian authors 
were close and warm. For whatever reasons — and it 
is unnecessary to assume professional jealousy — 
they were never intimates. In view-point, as men 
and artists, background of culture, family and class 
feeling, there were marked differences between them 
and there is absolutely no reason why the present 
generation should not accept and enjoy them as con- 
trasted types, whether as individuals or authors, 



THE MAN 31 

receiving the pleasure germane to each, and respect- 
ing them both as good men who wrought nobly, each 
according to his nature, and left English literature 
richer by doing so. It seems foolish, and an un- 
called-for curtailment of one's enjoyment, to eschew 
one of these writers because one affects the other. 
It is the commonest thing in the world to find among 
those who care for letters this partisan attitude. 
The wiser way were to appreciate the fine qualities 
indubitably possessed by Charles Dickens and Will- 
iam Makepeace Thackeray, and not to bother over- 
much that their gifts were unlike. 

In one of his essays Stevenson prays that he may 
be spared "the dim tedium of the sick room." Who 
indeed, were it not for the shock to others, would 
not prefer to be stricken down in the midst of work, 
while one's powers are still vigorous and there is 
no thought of inaction and useless lingering? To 
Dickens was given such an end. He was always 
quick, energetic, decisive, a-tiptoe with life, and his 
death tallied with his character, his nature. On 
that June day at Gadshill which was to be his 
last, he spent the morning in his writing chalet, the 
gift of the actor, Fechter, at work on The Mystery 
of Edwin Drood, the unfinished book concerning 
which the critics have been puzzling their brains 
ever since to solve its riddle. Then, at dinner he 
was seized, and by bedtime gone; one of those 
strokes that fall with terrible unexpectedness upon 
others, but are merciful to the stricken. 



32 DICKENS 

Dickens's will read: "I commit my soul to the 
mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus 
Christ, and I exhort my dear children honestly to 
try and guide themselves by the teachings of the 
New Testament in its broad spirit and to put no 
faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter 
here or there." 

It had been the author's wish to be buried simply 
and privately in Rochester churchyard. But the 
family yielded to the desire of the British people, 
expressed through Gladstone, the prime minister, 
that this man, in the truest sense a public benefactor, 
should rest in Westminster Abbey, in that Poets' 
Corner dedicated to the country's great writers, past 
and present. And so to-day the visitor stands rev- 
erently beside the inscription which notes his sepul- 
ture ; although Thackeray sleeps in Kensal Green, a 
commemorative bust also is here, associating the 
two great masters of story-telling who graced the 
reign of Victoria the Good. During their lives they 
worked together, each with his vision, to make the 
w r orld know and understand the English race; and 
in the Abbey by the Thames's side their names are 
handed on, as a most honorable legacy, to all folk 
of English speech. Carlyle, whose tongue was too 
often censorious of others, spoke these words of 
Charles Dickens when he was gone : "The good, 
the gentle, the high-gifted, ever friendly, noble 
Dickens, every inch of him an honest man." It 
may suffice for his epitaph. 



CHAPTER III 

Finding Himself: The Maker of Mirthful 
Scene and Character 

AFTER the tentative work of a young man in 
±\ his twenties, Sketches by Boz, comes the first 
great book by Charles Dickens, which is affection- 
ately known of men by the abbreviated title, The 
Pickwick Papers, its original naming perhaps re- 
vealing more fully the nature of the book: The 
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. There 
are only a few other titles, such as Robinson Crusoe, 
Gulliver's Travels, Uncle Tom's Cabin, equally fa- 
miliar to those of English speech; no name created 
by the imagination in any nation is better known 
than that of Mr. Pickwick. Dickens has caught in 
him a type to be "understanded of the people"; and 
equally to be loved. He is so relishable in his real- 
ity. We can sympathize with him, admire his funda- 
mental virtues, pity his weaknesses, and always 
laugh with him in his ever-delightful recognition 
of the fact that Life, viewed in kindly tolerance 
and understanding, is a mighty good thing. As 
Mr. Shaw says, "Mr. Pickwick is the safest saint for 
us in our nonage." He is built four-square on the 

33 



34 DICKENS 

recognizable British traits. He is splendidly sane 
— even in his foolishness. And that this was done 
by a young fellow of four and twenty, secured by 
a publisher to furnish the running text for a series 
of sporting pictures, is enough to make plain the 
power of this English story-teller. His contribution 
was supposed to be entirely secondary ; yet he made 
permanent addition to the pleasurable portrait gal- 
lery of letters. It was a feat only to be performed by 
genius. While no book Dickens was to write during 
the generation in which he toiled at his task was to 
be more widely known or better loved, the full man, 
as human being and artist, was by no means to be re- 
vealed in this delightful chronicle of scene and char- 
acter. The view of life is superficial, the main 
virtue is in the reporter's quick catching of pictur- 
esque, amusing incidents and in his immense animal 
spirits, along with a keen eye for the foibles of 
humanity externally observed. 

Pickwick appeared in monthly instalments during 
1836-7, and on its production in book form the suc- 
cess was immediate, forty thousand copies being sold 
before the expiration of 1837. The framework of 
story is slight. Mr. Pickwick and his associates in 
the celebrated club that bears his name simply jour- 
ney about rural England with descents upon London 
and meet with the adventures such sportive gentle- 
men would encounter. It matters not how slight 
the story interest : episodes, scenes, characteriza- 



FINDING HIMSELF 35 

tions are the main thing. It all has the charm of 
chronicle history, like Tom Jones in an earlier gen- 
eration. There is a delightful flavor of the picar- 
esque, and Dickens's debt to Smollett and Fielding 
— a debt well paid in the use — is manifest. 

We might express it succinctly in saying that in 
this first famous book Dickens demonstrated his 
genius, but it was the genius of a young man, who 
naturally saw life externally, and who did not yet 
show, did not indeed in such a work as Pickwick 
need to show, that he could construct and carry 
through in an organic way what is called a novel. 
Pickwick is a series of episodes centering in a char- 
acter. Its fun, which so often comes fast and fu- 
rious, is of the sort that inheres in men presented 
in their humors in the older meaning of the word, 
and caught in situations which in themselves amuse 
with their lively saliency. Bonhomie is of the very 
breath of the nostrils of such writing. 

In this teeming picture, or series of pictures, are 
to be found some of the best-known and best-loved 
of all the creatures imagined by Dickens : Pickwick 
himself, and those twin begetters of honest, rib- 
shaking mirth, the Wellers, father and son. It is 
safe to say that no character has come from the pen 
of this writer, or better, from his sympathetic spirit, 
more widely treasured than Sam Weller. Enjoy- 
able as is the elder of that ilk, Sam, Mr. Pickwick's 
cockney valet, is not only the ten strike of Dickens's 



36 DICKENS 

youth, but comes dangerously near leading the long 
list of comic portraits. We may listen and look as 
his master engages him as a body servant: Mr. 
Pickwick has discovered Sam as Boots at the White 
Hart Inn in London, and being attracted by his 
quaint good humor, bids him call at the lodgings, 
where Mrs. Bardell, his estimable landlady, a widow 
with an eye out for number two, has just sadly mis- 
understood Mr. Pickwick's entirely innocent atten- 
tions. We may have this episode of mistaken court- 
ship, as well as the entrance of the famed Sam, who, 
once engaged, is to be the inseparable and valued 
companion of the founder of the Pickwick Club 
throughout his adventures : 

Enter Sam Wetter 

"Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as 
that amiable female approached the termination of 
a prolonged dusting of the apartment. 

"Sir," said Mrs. Bardell. 

"Your little boy is a very long time gone." 

"Why, it's a good long way to the Borough, sir," 
remonstrated Mrs. Bardell. 

"Ah," said Mr. Pickwick, "very true; so it is." 

Mr. Pickwick relapsed into silence, and Mrs. Bar- 
dell resumed her dusting. 

"Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at the expira- 
tion of a few minutes. 



FINDING HIMSELF 37 

"Sir," said Mrs. Bardell again. 

"Do you think it's a much greater expense to 
keep two people than to keep one?" 

"La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, colouring 
up to the very border of her cap, as she fancied she 
observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the 
eyes of her lodger — "la, Mr. Pickwick, what a ques- 
tion!" 

"Well, but do you?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. 

"That depends" — said Mrs. Bardell, approach- 
ing the duster very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, 
which was planted on the table — "that depends a 
good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pick- 
wick; and whether it's a saving and careful person, 
sir." 

"That's very true," said Mr. Pickwick, "but the 
person I have in my eye" (here he looked very hard 
at Mrs. Bardell) "I think possesses these qualities; 
and has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the 
world, and a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. Bardell, 
which may be of material use to me." 

"La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, the crim- 
son rising to her cap-border again. 

"I do," said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as 
was his wont in speaking of a subject which inter- 
ested him — "I do, indeed ; and to tell you the truth, 
Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind." 

"Dear me, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. 

"You'll think it very strange, now," said the ami- 



38 DICKENS 

able Mr. Pickwick, with a good-humoured glance 
at his companion, "that I never consulted you about 
this matter, and never even mentioned it, till I sent 
your little boy out this morning — eh?" 

Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a glance. She 
had long worshipped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, 
but here she was, all at once, raised to a pinnacle 
to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes 
had never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was go- 
ing to propose — a deliberate plan, too — sent her 
little boy to the Borough, to get him out of the way 
— how thoughtful — how considerate ! 

"Well," said Mr. Pickwick, "what do you think?" 

"Oh, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, trem- 
bling with agitation, "you're very kind, sir." 

"It'll save you a good deal of trouble, won't it?" 
said Mr. Pickwick. 

"Oh, I never thought anything of the trouble, 
sir," replied Mrs. Bardell, "and, of course, I should 
take more trouble to please you then than ever. But 
it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have so much 
consideration for my loneliness." 

"Ah, to be sure," said Mr. Pickwick, "I never 
thought of that. When I am in town you'll always 
have somebody to sit with you. To be sure, so you 
will." 

"I'm sure I ought to be a very happy woman," 
said Mrs. Bardell. 

"And your little boy — " said Mr. Pickwick. 



FINDING HIMSELF 39 

"Bless his heart!" interposed Mrs. Bardell, with 
a maternal sob. 

"He, too, will have a companion," resumed Mr. 
Pickwick, "a lively one, who'll teach him, I'll be 
bound, more tricks in a week than he would ever 
learn in a year." And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly. 

"Oh, you dear — " said Mrs. Bardell. 

Mr. Pickwick started. 

"Oh, you kind, good, playful dear," said Mrs. 
Bardell; and without more ado, she rose from her 
chair, and flung her arms round Mr. Pickwick's 
neck, with a cataract of tears and a chorus of sobs. 

"Bless my soul!" cried the astonished Mr. Pick- 
wick. "Mrs. Bardell, my good woman — dear me, 
what a situation — pray consider — Mrs. Bardell, 
don't — if anybody should come — " 

"Oh, let them come," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, 
frantically; "I'll never leave you — dear, kind, good 
soul;" and with these words Mrs. Bardell clung the 
tighter. 

"Mercy upon me !" said Mr. Pickwick, struggling 
violently, "I hear somebody coming up the stairs. 
Don't, don't, there's a good creature, don't." But 
entreaty and remonstrance were alike unavailing; 
for Mrs. Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick's 
arms; and before he could gain time to deposit her 
on a chair, Master Bardell entered the room, usher- 
ing in Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snod- 
grass. 



40 DICKENS 

Mr. Pickwick was struck motionless and speech- 
less. He stood with his lovely burden in his arms, 
gazing vacantly on the countenances of his friends, 
without the slightest attempt at recognition or ex- 
planation. They, in their turn, stared at him; and 
Master Bardell, in his turn, stared at everybody. 

The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so ab- 
sorbing, and the perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so 
extreme, that they might have remained in exactly 
the same relative situations until the suspended ani- 
mation of the lady was restored, had it not been 
for a most beautiful and touching expression of 
filial affection on the part of her youthful son. 
Clad in a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass 
buttons of a very considerable size, he at first stood 
at the door astounded and uncertain ; but by degrees 
the impression that his mother must have suffered 
some personal danger pervaded his partially-devel- 
oped mind, and considering Mr. Pickwick as the 
aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi-earthly 
kind of howling, and butting forward with his head, 
commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about 
the back and legs, with such blows* and pinches as 
the strength of his arm and the violence of his ex- 
citement allowed. 

"Take this little villain away," said the agonized 
Mr. Pickwick; "he's mad." 

"What is the matter?" said the three tongue-tied 
Pickwickians. 



FINDING HIMSELF 41 

"I don't know," replied Mr. Pickwick pettishly. 
"Take away the boy." (Here Mr. Winkle carried 
the interesting boy, screaming and struggling, to 
the farther end of the apartment.) "Now, help 
me, lead this woman downstairs." 

"Oh, I am better now," said Mrs. Bardell faintly. 

"Let me lead you downstairs," said the ever gal- 
lant Mr. Tupman. 

"Thank you, sir — thank you," exclaimed Mrs. 
Bardell, hysterically. And downstairs she was led 
accordingly, accompanied by her affectionate son. 

"I can not conceive," said Mr. Pickwick, when 
his friend returned — "I can not conceive what has 
been the matter with that woman. I had merely 
announced to her my intention of keeping a man- 
servant when she fell into the extraordinary parox- 
ysm in which you found her. Very extraordinary 
thing." 

"Very," said his three friends. 

"Placed me in such an extremely awkward situa- 
tion," continued Mr. Pickwick. 

"Very," was the reply of his followers, as they 
coughed slightly and looked dubiously at each other. 

This behaviour was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. 
He remarked their incredulity. They evidently sus- 
pected him. 

"There is a man in the passage now," said Mr. 
Tupman. 

"It's the man I spoke to you about," said Mr. 



42 DICKENS 

Pickwick ; "I sent for him to the Borough this morn- 
ing. — Have the goodness to call him up, Snod- 
grass. ,, 

Mr. Snodgrass did as he was desired; and Mr. 
Samuel Weller forthwith presented himself. 

"Oh — you remember me, I suppose?" said Mr. 
Pickwick. 

"I should think so," replied Sam, with a patroniz- 
ing wink. "Queer start that 'ere, but he was one 
too many for you, warn't he? Up to snuff, and a 
pinch or two over — eh?" 

"Never mind that matter now," said Mr. Pick- 
wick, hastily. "I want to speak to you about some- 
thing else. Sit down." 

"Thank'ee, sir," said Sam. And down he sat 
without further bidding, having previously depos- 
ited his old white hat on the landing outside the 
door. "Tan't a wery good 'un to look at," said 
Sam, "but it's an astonishin' 'un to wear; and afore 
the brim went, it was a wery handsome tile. Hows'- 
ever, it's lighter without it, that's one thing; and 
every hole lets in some air, that's another — wenti- 
lation gossamer, I calls it." On the delivery of this 
sentiment, Mr. Weller smiled agreeably upon the 
assembled Pickwickians. 

"Now with regard to the matter on which I, with 
the concurrence of these gentlemen, sent for you," 
said Mr. Pickwick. 

"That's the pint, sir," interposed Sam ; "out vith 






FINDING HIMSELF 43 

it, as- the father said to the child when he swallowed 
a farden." 

"We want to know, in the first place," said Mr. 
Pickwick, "whether you have any reason to be dis- 
contented with your present situation." 

"Afore I answers that 'ere question, genTm'n," 
replied Mr. Weller, "1 should like to know, in the 
first place, whether you're a-goin' to purwide me 
with a better." 

A sunbeam of placid benevolence played on Mr. 
Pickwick's features as he said, "I have half made 
up my mind to engage you myself." 

"Have you, though?" said Sam. 

Mr. Pickwick nodded in the affirmative. 

"Wages?" inquired Sam. 

"Twelve pounds a year," replied Mr. Pickwick. 

"Clothes?" 

"Two suits." 

"Work?" 

"To attend upon me, and travel about with me 
and these gentlemen here." 

"Take the bill down," said Sam emphatically. 
"I'm let to a single gentleman, and the terms is 
agreed upon." 

"You accept the situation?" asked Mr. Pickwick. 

"Cert'nly," replied Sam. "If the clothes fits me 
half as well as the place, they'll do." 

"You can get a character, of course?" said Mr. 
Pickwick. 



44 DICKENS 

"Ask the landlady o' the White Hart about that, 
sir," replied Sam. 

"Can you come this evening?" 

"I'll get into the clothes this minute, if they're 
here," said Sam, with great alacrity. 

"Call at eight this evening," said Mr. Pickwick, 
"and if the inquiries are satisfactory, they shall be 
provided." 

With the single exception of one amiable indis- 
cretion, in which an assistant housemaid had equally 
participated, the history of Mr. Weller's conduct 
was so very blameless that Mr. Pickwick felt fully 
justified in closing the engagement that very eve- 
ning. With the promptness and energy which char- 
acterized not only the public proceedings, but all 
the private actions of this extraordinary man, he 
at once led his new attendant to one of those con- 
venient emporiums where gentlemen's new and sec- 
ond-hand clothes are provided, and the troublesome 
and inconvenient formality of measurement dis- 
pensed with; and before night had closed in, Mr. 
Weller was furnished with a grey coat with the 
P. C. button, a black hat with a cockade to it, a 
pink striped waistcoat, light breeches and gaiters, 
and a variety of other necessaries, too numerous 
to recapitulate. 

"Well," said that suddenly-transformed individ- 
ual, as he took his seat on the outside of the Eatans- 
will coach next morning; "I wonder whether I'm 



FINDING HIMSELF 45 

meant to be a footman, or a groom, or a game- 
keeper, or a seedman. I looks like a sort of compo 
of every one on 'em. Never mind; there's change 
of air, plenty to see, and little to do; and all this 
suits my complaint uncommon; so long life to the 
Pickvicks, says I !" 

But the elder Mr. Weller, an inimitable portrait 
of the old-time coachman with his slow speech, 
savory wisdom and poor opinion of widows, must 
also surely be presented: 

The Elder Weller 

The room was one of a very homely description, 
and was apparently under the especial patronage of 
stage coachmen ; for several gentlemen, who had all 
the appearance of belonging to that learned profes- 
sion, were drinking and smoking in the different 
boxes. Among the number was one stout, red- faced 
elderly man in particular, seated in an opposite box, 
who attracted Mr. Pickwick's attention. The stout 
man was smoking with great vehemence, but be- 
tween every half-dozen puffs he took his pipe from 
his mouth, and looked first at Mr. Weller and then 
at Mr. Pickwick. Then he would bury in a quart 
pot as much of his countenance as the dimensions 
of the quart pot admitted of its receiving, and took 
another look at Sam and Mr. Pickwick. Then he 



46 DICKENS 

would take another half-dozen puffs with an air of 
profound meditation and look at them again. At 
last the stout man, putting up his legs on the seat, 
and leaning his back against the wall, began to puff 
at his pipe without leaving off at all, and to stare 
through the smoke at the new-comers, as if he had 
made up his mind to see the most he could of them. 

At first the evolutions of the stout man had es- 
caped Mr. Weller's observation, but by degrees, as 
he saw Mr. Pickwick's eyes every now and then 
turning towards him, he began to gaze in the same 
direction, at the same time shading his eyes with 
his hand, as if he partially recognized the object 
before him, and wished to make quite sure of its 
identity. His doubts were speedily dispelled, how- 
ever ; for the stout man having blown a thick cloud 
from his pipe, a hoarse voice, like some strange ef- 
fort of ventriloquism, emerged from beneath the 
capacious shawls which muffled his throat and chest, 
and slowly uttered these sounds — "Wy, Sammy !" 

"Who's that, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. 

"Why, I wouldn't ha' believed it, sir," replied 
Mr. Weller, with astonished eyes. "It's the old 'un." 

"Old one," said Mr. Pickwick, "what old one?" 

"My father, sir," replied Mr. Weller. — "How are 
you, my ancient?" With which beautiful ebullition 
of filial affection Mr. Weller made room on the seat 
beside him for the stout man, who advanced, pipe 
in mouth and pot in hand, to greet him. 



FINDING HIMSELF 47, 

"Wy, Sammy/' said the father, "I han't seen you 
for two year and better." 

"Nor more you have, old codger," replied the 
son. "How's mother-in-law?" 

"Wy, I'll tell you what, Sammy," said Mr. Wel- 
ler, senior, with much solemnity in his manner; 
"there never was a nicer woman as a widder than 
that 'ere second wentur o' mine — a sweet creetur 
she was, Sammy; all I can say on her now is, that 
as she was such an uncommon pleasant widder, it's 
a great pity she ever changed her con-dition. She 
don't act as a wife, Sammy." 

"Don't she, though?" inquired Mr. Welter, jun- 
ior. 

The elder Mr. Welter shook his head, as he re- 
plied with a sigh, "I've done it once too often, 
Sammy; I've done it once too often. Take exam- 
ple by your father, my boy, and be wery careful 
o' widders all your life, specially if they've kept a 
public-house, Sammy." Having delivered this pa- 
rental advice with great pathos, Mr. Welter, senior, 
refilled his pipe from a tin box he carried in his 
pocket, and lighting his fresh pipe from the ashes 
of the old one, commenced smoking at a great rate. 

"Beg your pardon, sir," he said, renewing the 
subject, and addressing Mr. Pickwick, after a con- 
siderable pause, "nothin' personal, I hope, sir; I 
hope you han't got a widder, sir." 

"Not I," replied Mr. Pickwick, laughing; and 



48 DICKENS 

while Mr. Pickwick laughed, Sam Weller informed 
his parent, in a whisper, of the relation in which he 
stood towards that gentleman. 

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Weller, senior, 
taking off his hat, "I hope you've no fault to find 
with Sammy, sir?" 

"None whatever," said Mr. Pickwick. 

"Wery glad to hear it, sir," replied the old man. 
"I took a good deal o' pains with his eddication, 
sir; let him run the streets when he was wery young, 
and shift for hisself. It's the only way to make a 
boy sharp, sir." 

"Rather a dangerous process, I should imagine," 
said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. 

"And not a wery sure one, neither," added Mr. 
Weller; "I got reg'larly done the other day." 

"No!" said the father. 

"I did," said the son ; and he proceeded to relate, 
in as few words as possible, how he had fallen a 
ready dupe to the stratagems of Job Trotter. 

Mr. Weller, senior, listened to the tale with the 
most profound attention, and at its termination 
said, — 

"Worn't one o' these chaps slim and tall, with 
long hair, and the gift o' the gab wery gallopin'?" 

Mr. Pickwick did not quite understand the last 
item of description, but comprehending the first, 
said "Yes" at a venture. 



FINDING HIMSELF 49 

"T'other's a black-haired chap in mulberry livery, 
with a wery large head ?" 

"Yes, yes, he is," said Mr. Pickwick and Sam, 
with great earnestness. 

"Then I know where they are, and that's all 
about it," said Mr. Weller; "they're at Ipswich, 
safe enough, them two." 

"No !" said Mr. Pickwick. 

"Fact," said Mr. Weller, "and I'll tell you how 
I know it. I work on Ipswich coach now and then 
for a friend o' mine. I worked down the wery day 
arter the night as you caught the rheumatiz, and at 
the Black Boy at Chelmsford — the wery place they'd 
come to — I took 'em up, right through to Ipswich, 
where the man-servant— him in the mulberries — 
told me they was a-goin' to put up for a long time." 

"I'll follow him," said Mr. Pickwick; "we may 
as well see Ipswich as any other place. I'll fol- 
low him." 

"You're quite certain it was them, governor?" 
inquired Mr. Weller, junior. 

"Quite, Sammy, quite," replied his father, "for 
their appearance is wery sing'ler : besides that 'ere, 
I wondered to see the gen'l'm'n so formiliar with 
his servant; and more than that, as they sat in 
front, right behind the box, I heerd 'em laughing, 
and saying how they'd done old Fireworks." 

"Old who?" said Mr. Pickwick. 



50 DICKENS 

"Old Fireworks, sir ; by which I've no doubt they 
meant you, sir." 

There is nothing positively vile or atrocious in 
the appellation of "old Fireworks," but still it is 
by no means a respectful or flattering designation. 
The recollection of all the wrongs he had sustained 
at Jingle's hands had crowded on Mr. Pickwick's 
mind the moment Mr. Weller began to speak: it 
wanted but a feather to turn the scale, and "old 
Fireworks" did it. 

"I'll follow him," said Mr. Pickwick, with an 
emphatic blow on the table. 

"I shall work down to Ipswich the day arter to- 
morrow, sir," said Mr. Weller the elder, "from the 
Bull in Whitechapel; and if you really mean to go, 
you'd better go with me." 

"So we had," said Mr. Pickwick; "very true. I 
can write to Bury, and tell them to meet me at Ips- 
wich. We will go with you. But don't hurry away, 
Mr. Weller; won't you take anything?" 

"You're wery good, sir," replied Mr. W., stop- 
ping short; "perhaps a small glass of brandy to 
drink your health, and success to Sammy, sir, 
wouldn't be amiss." 

"Certainly not," replied Mr. Pickwick. — "A glass 
of brandy here!" The brandy was brought; and 
Mr. Weller, after pulling his hair to Mr. Pickwick 
and nodding to Sam, jerked it down his capacious 
throat as if it had been a small thimbleful. 



FINDING HIMSELF 51 

"Well done, father," said Sam; "take care, old 
fellow, or you'll have a touch of your old complaint, 
the gout." 

"I've found a sov'rin' cure for that, Sammy," 
replied Mr. Weller, setting down the glass. 

"A sovereign cure for the gout," said Mr. Pick- 
wick, hastily producing his note-book — "what is it?" 

"The gout, sir," replied Mr. Weller — "the gout 
is a complaint as arises from too much ease and 
comfort. If ever you're attacked with the gout, sir, 
jist you marry a widder as has got a good loud 
woice, with a decent notion of usin' it, and you'll 
never have the gout agin. It's a capital prescrip- 
tion, sir. I takes it reg'lar, and I can warrant it 
to drive away any illness as is caused by too much 
jollity." Having imparted this valuable secret, Mr. 
Weller drained his glass once more, produced a la- 
boured wink, sighed deeply, and slowly retired. 

"Well, what do you think of what your father 
says, Sam?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. 

"Think, sir!" replied Mr. Weller; "why, I think 
he's the wictim o' connubiality, as Blue Beard's do- 
mestic chaplain said, with a tear of pity, ven he 
buried him." 

The stern sequence of Mr. Pickwick's kindness 
to his landlady is the court scene in the memorable 
trial of Bardell against Pickwick: 



52 DICKENS 

Bardell vs. Pickwick 

The judge had no sooner taken his seat, than the 
officer on the floor of the court called out "Silence!" 
in a commanding tone, upon which another officer 
in the gallery cried "Silence !" in an angry manner, 
whereupon three or four more ushers shouted "Si- 
lence!" in a voice of indignant remonstrance. This 
being done, a gentleman in black, who sat below 
the judge, proceeded to call over the names of the 
jury; and after a great deal of bawling, it was dis- 
covered that only ten special jurymen were present. 
Upon this, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz prayed a tales; the 
gentleman in black then proceeded to press into the 
special jury two of the common jurymen; and a 
green-grocer and a chemist were caught directly. 

"Answer to your names, gentlemen, that you may 
be sworn," said the gentleman in black. "Richard 
Upwitch." 

"Here," said the green-grocer. 

"Thomas Groffin." 

"Here," said the chemist. 

"Take the book, gentlemen. You shall well and 
truly try—" 

"I beg this court's pardon," said the chemist, who 
was a tall, thin, yellow-visaged man, "but I hope 
this court will excuse my attendance." 

"On what grounds, sir?" said Mr. Justice Stare- 
lei gh. 



FINDING HIMSELF 53 

"I have no assistant, my Lord," said the chemist. 

"I can't help that, sir," replied Mr. Justice Stare- 
leigh. "You should hire one." 

"I can't afford it, my Lord," rejoined the chemist. 

"Then you ought to be able to afford it, sir," said 
the judge, reddening; for Mr. Justice Stareleigh's 
temper bordered on the irritable, and brooked not 
contradiction. 

"I know I ought to do, if I got on as well as I 
deserved, but I don't, my Lord," answered the 
chemist. 

"Swear the gentleman," said the judge, peremp- 
torily. 

The officer had got no further than the "You shall 
well and truly try," when he was again interrupted 
by the chemist. 

"I am to be sworn, my Lord, am I?" said the 
chemist. 

"Certainly, sir," replied the testy little judge. 

"Very well, my Lord," replied the chemist, in a 
resigned manner. "Then there'll be murder before 
this trial's over; that's all. Swear me, if you please, 
sir;" and sworn the chemist was, before the judge 
could find words to utter. 

"I merely wanted to observe, my Lord," said the 
chemist, taking his seat with great deliberation, 
"that I've left nobody but an errand-boy in my 
shop. He is a very nice boy, my Lord, but he is 
not acquainted with drugs ; and I know that the pre- 



54 DICKENS 

vailing impression on his mind is, that Epsom salts 
means oxalic acid; and syrup of senna, laudanum. 
That's all, my Lord." With this, the tall chemist 
composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and, 
assuming a pleasant expression of countenance, ap- 
peared to have prepared himself for the worst. 

Mr. Pickwick was regarding the chemist with 
feelings of the deepest horror, when a slight sen- 
sation was perceptible in the body of the court; and 
immediately afterwards Mrs. Bardell, supported by 
Mrs. Cluppins, was led in, and placed, in a droop- 
ing state, at the other end of the seat on which 
Mr. Pickwick sat. An extra sized umbrella was 
then handed in by Mr. Dodson, and a pair of pat- 
tens by Mr. Fogg, each of whom had prepared a 
most sympathising and melancholy face for the oc- 
casion. Mrs. Sanders then appeared, leading in 
Master Bardell. At sight of her child, Mrs. Bar- 
dell started; suddenly recollecting herself, she kissed 
him in a frantic manner ; then relapsing into a state 
of hysterical imbecility, the good lady requested to 
be informed where she was. In reply to this, Mrs. 
Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders turned their heads away 
and wept, while Messrs. Dodson and Fogg intreated 
the plaintiff to compose herself. Serjeant Buzfuz 
rubbed his eyes very hard with a large white hand- 
kerchief, and gave an appealing look towards the 
jury, while the judge was visibly affected, and sev- 



FINDING HIMSELF 55 

eral of the beholders tried to cough down their emo- 
tions. 

"Very good notion that, indeed," whispered Per- 
ker to Mr. Pickwick. "Capital fellows, those, 
Dodson and Fogg; excellent ideas of effect, my 
dear sir, excellent." 

As Perker spoke, Mrs. Bardell began to recover 
by slow degrees, while Mrs. Cluppins, after a care- 
ful survey of Master Bardell's buttons and the but- 
ton-holes to which they severally belonged, placed 
him on the floor of the court in front of his mother, 
— a commanding position in which he could not fail 
to awaken the full commiseration and sympathy of 
both judge and jury. This was not done without 
considerable opposition, and many tears, on the part 
of the young gentleman himself, who had certain 
inward misgivings that the placing him within the 
full glare of the judge's eye was only a formal pre- 
lude to his being immediately ordered away for 
instant execution, or for transportation beyond the 
seas, during the whole term of his natural life, at 
the very least. 

"Bardell and Pickwick," cried the gentleman in 
black, calling on the case, which stood first on the 
list. 

"I am for the plaintiff, my Lord," said Mr. Ser- 
jeant Buzfuz. 

"Who is with you, brother Buzfuz?" said the 



56 DICKENS 

judge. Mr. Skimpin bowed, to intimate that he 
was. 

"I appear for the defendant, my Lord," said Mr. 
Serjeant Snubbin. 

"Anybody with you, brother Snubbin?" inquired 
the court. 

"Mr. Phunky, my Lord," replied Serjeant Snub- 
bin. 

"Serjeant Buzfuz and Mr. Skimpin for the plain- 
tiff," said the judge, writing down the names in his 
note-book, and reading as he wrote; "for the de- 
fendant, Serjeant Snubbin and Mr. Monkey." 

"Beg your Lordship's pardon, Phunky." 

"Oh, very good," said the judge; "I never had 
the pleasure of hearing the gentleman's name be- 
fore." Here Mr. Phunky bowed and smiled, and 
the judge bowed and smiled too, and then Mr. 
Phunky, blushing into the very whites of his eyes, 
tried to look as if he didn't know that everybody 
was gazing at him : a thing which no man ever suc- 
ceeded in doing yet, or in all reasonable probability, 
ever will. 

"Go on," said the judge. 

The ushers again called silence, and Mr. Skimpin 
proceeded to "open the case" ; and the case appeared 
to have very little inside it when he had opened it, 
for he kept such particulars as he knew completely 
to himself, and sat down, after a lapse of three 
minutes, leaving the jury in precisely the same ad- 
vanced stage of wisdom as they were in before. 



FINDING HIMSELF 57 

Serjeant Buzfuz then rose with all the majesty 
and dignity which the grave nature of the proceed- 
ings demanded, and having whispered to Dodson, 
and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown 
over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed 
the jury. 

Serjeant Buzfuz began by saying, that never, in 
the whole course of his professional experience — 
never, from the very first moment of his applying 
himself to the study and practice of the law — had 
he approached a case with feelings of such deep 
emotion, or with such a heavy sense of the respon- 
sibility imposed upon him — a responsibility, he 
would say, which he could never have supported, 
were he not buoyed up and sustained by a convic- 
tion so strong, that it amounted to positive certainty 
that the cause of truth and justice, or, in other 
words, the cause of his much-injured and most op- 
pressed client, must prevail with the high-minded 
and intelligent dozen of men whom he now saw in 
that box before him. 

Counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts 
the jury on the very best terms with themselves, and 
makes them think what sharp fellows they must be. 
A visible effect was produced immediately; several 
jurymen beginning to take voluminous notes with 
the utmost eagerness. 

"You have heard from my learned friend, gen- 
tlemen," continued Serjeant Buzfuz, well knowing 



58 DICKENS 

that, from the learned friend alluded to, the gen- 
tlemen of the jury had heard just nothing at all — 
"you have heard from my learned friend, gentle- 
men, that this is an action for a breach of promise 1 
of marriage, in which the damages are laid at fif- 
teen hundred pounds. But you have not heard from 
my learned friend, inasmuch as it did not come 
within my learned friend's province to tell you, 
what are the facts and circumstances of the case. 
Those facts and circumstances, gentlemen, you shall 
hear detailed by me, and proved by the unimpeach- 
able female whom I will place in that box before 
you." 

Here Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, with a tremendous 
emphasis on the word "box," smote his table with a 
mighty sound, and glanced at Dodson and Fogg, 
who nodded admiration of the Serjeant, and indig- 
nant defiance of the defendant. 

"The plaintiff, gentlemen," continued Serjeant 
Buzfuz, in a soft and melancholy voice, "the plain- 
tiff is a widow ; yes, gentlemen, a widow. The late 
Mr. Bardell, after enjoying, for many years, the 
esteem and confidence of his sovereign, as one of 
the guardians of his royal revenues, glided almost 
imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere for 
that repose and peace which a custom-house can 
never afford." 

At this pathetic description of the decease of Mr. 
Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a 



FINDING HIMSELF 59 

quart-pot in a public-house cellar, the learned Ser- 
jeant's voice faltered, and he proceeded with emo- 
tion: 

"Some time before his death, he had stamped his 
likeness upon a little boy. With this little boy, the 
only pledge of her departed exciseman, Mrs. Bar- 
dell shrunk from the world, and courted the retire- 
ment and tranquillity of Goswell Street; and here 
she placed in her front parlour-window a written 
placard, bearing this inscription — 'Apartments fur- 
nished for a single gentleman. Inquire within/ " 
Here Serjeant Buzfuz paused, while several gentle- 
men of the jury took a note of the document. 

"There is no date to that, is there, sir?" inquired 
a juror. 

"There is no date, gentlemen, " replied Serjeant 
Buzfuz; "but I am instructed to say that it was put 
in the plaintiff's parlour-window just this time three 
years. I intreat the attention of the jury to the 
wording of this document. 'Apartments furnished 
for a single gentleman!' Mrs. Bardell's opinions 
of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived from 
a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of 
her lost husband. She had no fear, she had no 
distrust, she had no suspicion, all was confidence 
and reliance. 'Mr. Bardell,' said the widow; 'Mr. 
Bardell was a man of honour, Mr. Bardell was a 
man of his word, Mr. Bardell was no deceiver, Mr. 
Bardell was once a single gentleman himself; to 



60 DICKENS 

single gentlemen I look for protection, for assist- 
ance, for comfort, and for consolation; in single 
gentlemen I shall perpetually see something to re- 
mind me of what Mr. Bardell was when he first 
won my young and untried affections; to a single 
gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.' Actu- 
ated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among 
the best impulses of our imperfect nature, gentle- 
men,) the lonely and desolate widow dried her tears, 
furnished her first floor, caught the innocent boy 
to her maternal bosom, and put the bill up in her 
parlour-window. Did it remain there long? No. 
The serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, 
the mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was 
at work. Before the bill had been in the parlour- 
window three days — three days — gentlemen, a 
Being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the out- 
ward semblance of a man, and not of a monster, 
knocked at the door of Mrs. Bardell's house. He 
inquired within; he took the lodgings; and on 
the very next day he entered into possession of 
them. This man was Pickwick — Pickwick, the de- 
fendant." 

Serjeant Buzfuz, who had proceeded with such 
volubility that his face was perfectly crimson, here 
paused for breath. The silence awoke Mr. Justice 
Stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something 
with a pen without any ink in it, and looked un- 
usually profound, to impress the jury with the belief 



FINDING HIMSELF 61 

that he always thought most deeply with his eyes 
shut. Serjeant Buzfuz proceeded. 

"Of this man Pickwick, I will say little; the sub- 
ject presents but few attractions ; and I, gentlemen, 
am not the man, nor are you, gentlemen, the men, 
to delight in the contemplation of revolting heart- 
lessness, and of systematic villainy." 

Here Mr. Pickwick, who had been writhing in 
silence for some time, gave a violent start, as if 
some vague idea of assaulting Serjeant Buzfuz, in 
the august presence of justice and law, suggested 
itself to his mind. An admonitory gesture from 
Perker restrained him, and he listened to the learned 
gentleman's continuation with a look of indignation, 
which contrasted forcibly with the admiring faces 
of Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders. 

"I say systematic villainy, gentlemen," said Ser- 
jeant Buzfuz, looking through Mr. Pickwick, and 
talking at him; "and' when I say systematic villainy, 
let me tell the defendant Pickwick, if he be in court, 
as I am informed he is, that it would have been more 
decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment, 
and in better taste, if he had stopped away. Let 
me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures of dissent 
or disapprobation in which he may indulge in this 
court will not go down with you ; that you will know 
how to value and how to appreciate them ; and let 
me tell him further, as my Lord will tell you, gen- 
tlemen, that a counsel, in the discharge of his duty 



62 DICKENS 

to his client, is neither to be intimidated, nor bul- 
lied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do 
either the one or the other, or the first, or the last, 
will recoil on the head of the attempter, be he plain- 
tiff or be he defendant, be his name Pickwick, or 
Noakes, or Stoakes, or Stiles, or Brown, or Thomp- 
son." 

This little divergence from the subject in hand, 
had, of course, the intended effect of turning all 
eyes to Mr. Pickwick. Serjeant Buzfuz, having par- 
tially recovered from the state of moral elevation 
into which he had lashed himself, resumed: 

"I shall show you, gentlemen, that for two years 
Pickwick continued to reside constantly, and with- 
out interruption or intermission, at Mrs. Bardell's 
house. I shall show you that Mrs. Bardell, during 
the whole of that time waited on him, attended to 
his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen 
for the washerwoman when it went abroad, darned, 
aired, and prepared it for wear, when it came home, 
and, in short, enjoyed his fullest trust and confi- 
dence. I shall show you that, on many occasions, 
he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even six- 
pence, to her little boy ; and I shall prove to you, by 
a witness whose testimony it will be impossible for 
my learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on 
one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, 
after inquiring whether he had won any alley tors 
or commoneys lately (both of which I understand 



FINDING HIMSELF 63 

to be a particular species of marbles much prized by 
the youth of this town), made use of this remark- 
able expression: 'How should you like to have an- 
other father ?' I shall prove to you, gentlemen, that 
about a year ago, Pickwick suddenly began to ab- 
sent himself from home, during long intervals, as 
if with the intention of gradually breaking off from 
my client ; but I shall show you also, that his reso- 
lution was not at that time sufficiently strong, or 
that his better feelings conquered, if better feelings 
he has, or that the charms and accomplishments of 
my client prevailed against his unmanly intentions ; 
by proving to you, that on one occasion, when he 
returned from the country, he distinctly and in 
terms, offered her marriage; previously, however, 
taking special care that there should be no witness 
to their solemn contract; and I am in a situation 
to prove to you, on the testimony of three of his 
own friends, — most unwilling witnesses, gentlemen 
— most unwilling witnesses — that on that morning 
he was discovered by them holding the plaintiff in 
his arms, and soothing her agitation by his caresses 
and endearments." 

A visible impression was produced upon the audi- 
tors by this part of the learned Serjeant's address. 
Drawing forth two very small scraps of paper, he 
proceeded : 

"And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two 
letters have passed between these parties, letters 



64 DICKENS 

which are admitted to be in the handwriting of the 
defendant, and which speak volumes indeed. These 
letters, too, bespeak the character of the man. They 
are not open, fervent, eloquent epistles, breathing 
nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. 
They are covert, sly, underhanded communications, 
but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched 
in the most glowing language and the most poetic 
imagery — letters that must be viewed with a cau- 
tious and suspicious eye — letters that were evidently 
intended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and 
delude any third parties into whose hands they 
might fall. Let me read the first: 'Garraway's, 
twelve o'clock. Dear Mrs. B. — Chops and Tomato 
sauce. Yours, Pickwick.' Gentlemen, what does 
this mean? Chops and Tomato sauce! Yours, 
Pickwick! Chops! Gracious heavens! and Tomato 
sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive 
and confiding female to be trifled away, by such 
shallow artifices as these? The next has no date 
whatever, which is in itself suspicious. 'Dear Mrs. 
B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow 
coach.' And then follows this very remarkable ex- 
pression. 'Don't trouble yourself about the warm- 
ing-pan.' The warming-pan ! Why, gentlemen, who 
does trouble himself about a warming-pan? When 
was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or 
disturbed by a warming-pan, which is in itself a 
harmless, a useful, and I will add, gentlemen, a 



FINDING HIMSELF 65 

comforting article of domestic furniture? Why is 
Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate 
herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no 
doubt the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire — a 
mere substitute for some endearing word or prom- 
ise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of corre- 
spondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a 
view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am 
not in a condition to explain ? And what does this 
allusion to the slow coach mean ? For aught I know, 
it may be a reference to Pickwick himself, who has 
most unquestionably been a criminally slow coach 
during the whole of this transaction, but whose 
speed will now be very unexpectedly accelerated, 
and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he will find to his 
cost, will very soon be greased by you !" 

Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz paused in this place, to see 
whether the jury smiled at his joke; but as nobody 
took it except the green-grocer, whose sensitiveness 
on the subject was very probably occasioned by his 
having subjected a chaise-cart to the process in ques- 
tion on that identical morning, the learned serjeant 
considered it advisable to undergo a slight relapse 
into the dismals before he concluded. 

"But enough of this, gentlemen," said Mr. Ser- 
jeant Buzfuz, "it is difficult to smile with an aching 
heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies 
are awakened. My client's hopes and prospects are 
ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her 



66 DICKENS 

occupation is gone indeed. The bill is down — but 
there is no tenant. Eligible single gentlemen pass 
and repass — but there is no invitation for them to 
inquire within or without. All is gloom and silence 
in the house; even the voice of the child is hushed; 
his infant sports are disregarded when his mother 
weeps ; his 'alley tors' and his 'commoneys' are alike 
neglected; he forgets the long familiar cry of 
'knuckle down/ and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, 
his hand is out. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pick- 
wick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis 
in the desert of Goswell Street — Pickwick, who has 
choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward 
— Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his 
heartless Tomato sauce and warming-pans — Pick- 
wick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, 
and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. 
Damages, gentlemen — heavy damages — is the only 
punishment with which you can visit him ; the only 
recompence you can award to my client. And for 
those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, 
a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a 
dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury 
of her civilized countrymen." With this beautiful 
peroration, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz sat down, and Mr. 
Justice Stareleigh woke up. 

These Pickwick extracts will serve to illustrate 
the young Dickens's talent alike for scene and char- 



FINDING HIMSELF 67 

acter, with the accompanying gift of unforced, bub- 
bling fun which come out of the scene with its con- 
tact or conflict of personalities as naturally as water 
rises to its source. The more mature writer added 
to the fun that came so fast and furious the deeper 
notes of pathos and mellow dramatic power. 



CHAPTER IV 
Early Novels 

FOLLOWING Pickwick, which, as we have 
noted, is not a novel at all, came a group of 
stories standing for Dickens's attempts at fiction in 
the novel form during the period of his life when 
he was learning the technic of his craft. Judged 
purely as art, these pieces of fiction plainly show 
one gradually feeling his way to mastery. But 
judged by creative energy, gift of characterization 
and the vis comica for which he is famed, they are 
hardly inferior to the books of full maturity, like 
Coppcrfield or Great Expectations. Regarded as 
organic structural compositions, the gain in the later 
fiction is unquestionable; the author worked hard 
at his task of perfecting himself in the art of his 
election. One has only to read Forster's Life to see 
how true this is. 

Nevertheless, such fiction as Oliver Twist, Nich- 
olas Nickleby, Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby 
Rudge will help to pass their maker's reputation 
down to a later generation. And the quotations 
from Dickens, a method of demonstrating what 

68 



EARLY NOVELS 69 

manner of man he was out of his own mouth, were 
incomplete, did they not include extracts from sev- 
eral of these early works. 

OLIVER TWIST 

Oliver Twist not only contains some of the au- 
thor's most familiar and endearing characters — all 
the world knows Bill Sikes and Nancy, Fagin and 
the Artful Dodger, Noah Claypole and Charlotte, 
and Mr. Bumble, the beadle — but it was an early 
illustration *of Dickens's social sympathy and of his 
desire so to present the life of both the abused poor 
and the criminal at large as to give a truer basis for 
their right handling by philanthropy and reform. 
The book is notably dramatic in method and 
abounds in that manipulation of chiaroscuro which 
is one of this master's gifts. The construction is 
loose, however, the method episodic, and the moral 
which centers in little Oliver himself didactically 
conveyed; beyond question, the story is strongest 
in its humorous treatment of rascaldom. 

The Burglary 

(Oliver Twist, a workhouse ward, has fallen into 
the hands of a gang of thieves and is here being 
used by them to help in the burglary of a private 
house.) 



70 DICKENS 

When Oliver awoke in the morning, he was a 
good deal surprised to find that a new pair of shoes, 
with strong thick soles, had been placed at his bed- 
side, and that his old ones had been removed. At 
first he was pleased with the discovery, hoping that 
it might be the forerunner of his release; but such 
thoughts were quickly dispelled on his sitting down 
to breakfast along with the Jew, who told him, in 
a tone and manner which increased his alarm, that 
he was to be taken to the residence of Bill Sikes 
that night. 

"To — to — stop there, sir?" asked Oliver anx- 
iously. 

"No, no, my dear; not to stop there," replied the 
Jew. "We wouldn't like to lose you. Don't be 
afraid, Oliver, you shall come back to us again. 
Ha ! ha ! ha ! We won't be so cruel as to send you 
away, my dear. Oh, no, no!" 

The old man, who was stooping over the fire 
toasting a piece of bread, looked round as he ban- 
tered Oliver thus, and chuckled, as if to show that 
he knew he would still be very glad to get away if 
he could. 

"I suppose," said the Jew, fixing his eyes on 
Oliver, "you want to know what you're going to 
Bill's for— eh, my dear?" 

Oliver coloured, involuntarily, to find that the old 
thief had been reading his thoughts ; but boldly said, 
Yes, he did want to know. 



EARLY NOVELS 71 

"Why, do you think?" inquired Fagin, parrying 
the question. 

"Indeed, I don't know, sir," replied Oliver. 

"Bah !" said the Jew, turning away with a disap- 
pointed countenance from a close perusal of the 
boy's face. "Wait till Bill tells you, then." 

The Jew seemed much vexed by Oliver's not ex- 
pressing any greater curiosity on the subject; but 
the truth is, that although he felt very anxious, he 
was too much confused by the earnest cunning of 
Fagin's looks, and his own speculations, to make 
any further inquiries just then. He had no other 
opportunity; for the Jew remained very surly and 
silent till night, when he prepared to go abroad. 

"You may burn a candle," said the Jew, putting 
one upon the table. "And here's a book for you 
to read, till they come to fetch you. Good-night." 

"Good-night!" replied Oliver softly. 

The Jew walked to the door, looking over his 
shoulder at the boy as he went. Suddenly stopping, 
he called him by his name. 

Oliver looked up, and the Jew, pointing to the 
candle, motioned him to light it. He did so; and 
as he placed the candlestick upon the table, saw that 
the Jew was gazing fixedly at him, with lowering 
and contracted brows, from the dark end of the 
room. 

"Take heed, Oliver, take heed !" said the old man, 
shaking his right hand before him in a warning 



72 DICKENS 

manner. "He's a rough man, and thinks nothing 
of blood when his own is up. Whatever falls out, 
say nothing; and do what he bids you. Mind!" 
Placing a strong emphasis on the last words, he 
suffered his features gradually to resolve themselves 
into a ghastly grin, and, nodding his head, left the 
room. 

Oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the 
old man disappeared, and pondered, with a trem- 
bling heart, on the words he had just heard. The 
more he thought of the Jew's admonition, the more 
he was at a loss to divine its real purpose and mean- 
ing. He could think of no bad object to be attained 
by sending him to Sikes, which would not be equally 
well answered by his remaining with Fagin; and 
after meditating for a long time, concluded that he 
had been selected to perform some ordinary menial 
offices for the housebreaker, until another boy, bet- 
ter suited for his purpose, could be engaged. He 
was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suf- 
fered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect 
of change very severely. He remained lost in 
thought for some minutes; and then, with a heavy 
sigh, snuffed the candle, and taking up the book 
which the Jew had left him, began to read. 

He turned over the leaves — carelessly at first; 
but, lighting on a passage which attracted his at- 
tention, he soon became intent upon the volume. 
It was a history of the lives and trials of great 



EARLY NOVELS 73 

criminals, and the pages were soiled and thumbed 
with use. Here he read of dreadful crimes that 
made the blood run cold — of secret murders that 
had been committed by the lonely wayside, and bod- 
ies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and 
wells, which would not keep them down, deep as 
they were, but had yielded them up at last, after 
many years, and so maddened the murderers with 
the sight that in their horror they had confessed 
their guilt, and yelled for the gibbet to end their 
agony. Here, too, he read of men who, lying in 
their beds at dead of night, had been tempted (as 
they said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, 
to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep 
and the limbs quail to think of. The terrible de- 
scriptions were so real and vivid that the sallow 
pages seemed to turn red with gore, and the words 
upon them to be sounded in his ears as if they were 
whispered, in hollow murmurs, by the spirits of the 
dead. 

In a paroxysm of fear the boy closed the book, 
and thrust it from him. Then, falling upon his 
knees, he prayed Heaven to spare him from such 
deeds, and rather to will that he should die at once 
than be reserved for crimes so fearful and appall- 
ing. By degrees he grew more calm, and besought, 
in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued 
from his present dangers; and that if any aid were 
to be raised up for a poor outcast boy, who had 



74 DICKENS 

never known the love of friends or kindred, it might 
come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he 
stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. 

He had concluded his prayer, but still remained 
with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling 
noise aroused him. 

"What's that?" he cried, starting up, and catch- 
ing sight of a figure standing by the door. "Who's 
there?" 

"Me — only me," replied a tremulous voice. 

Oliver raised the candle above his head, and 
looked towards the door. It was Nancy. 

"Put down the light," said the girl, turning away 
her head. "It hurts my eyes." 

Oliver saw that the girl was very pale, and gently 
inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself 
into a chair, with her back towards him, and wrung 
her hands, but made no reply. 

"God forgive me!" she cried after a while; "I 
never thought of this." 

"Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. "Can 
I help you? I will if I can. I will, indeed." 

She rocked herself to and fro, caught her throat, 
and, uttering a gurgling sound, struggled and 
gasped for breath. 

"Nancy!" cried Oliver, "what is it?" 

The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her 
feet upon the ground, and, suddenly stopping, drew 
her shawl close around her, and shivered with cold. 



EARLY NOVELS 75 

Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close 
to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speak- 
ing; but at length she raised her head, and looked 
round. 

"I don't know what comes over me sometimes,'' 
said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her 
dress; "it's this damp, dirty room, I think. Now, 
Nolly, dear, are you ready?" 

"Am I to go with you?" asked Oliver. 

"Yes; I have come from Bill," replied the girl. 
"You are to go with me." 

"What for ?" said Oliver, recoiling. 

"What for?" echoed the girl, raising her eyes, 
and averting them again the moment they encoun- 
tered the boy's face. "Oh, for no harm." 

"I don't believe it," said Oliver, who had watched 
her closely. 

"Have it your own way," rejoined the girl, af- 
fecting to laugh. "For no good, then." 

Oliver could see that he had some power over the 
girl's better feelings, and, for an instant, thought 
of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state. 
But then, the thought darted across his mind that 
it was barely eleven o'clock, and that many people 
were still in the street, of whom surely some might 
be found to give credence to his tale. As the re- 
flection occurred to him, he stepped forward and 
said, somewhat hastily, that he was ready. 

Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, 



76 DICKENS 

was lost on his companion. She eyed him narrowly 
while he spoke, and cast upon him a look of intelli- 
gence which sufficiently showed that she guessed 
what had been passing in his thoughts. 

"Hush!" said the girl, stooping over him, and 
pointing to the door as she looked cautiously round. 
"You can't help yourself. I have tried hard for 
you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged round 
and round; and if ever you are to get loose from 
here, this is not the time.' , 

Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver 
looked up in her face with great surprise. She 
seemed to speak the truth; her countenance was 
white and agitated, and she trembled with very 
earnestness. 

"I have saved you from being ill-used once, and 
I will again, and I do now," continued the girl 
aloud; "for those who would have fetched you, 
if I had not, would have been far more rough than 
me. I have promised for your being quiet and si- 
lent : if you are not, you will only do harm to your- 
self and me too; and perhaps be my death. See 
here ! I have borne all this for you already, as true 
as God sees me show it." 

She pointed, hastily, to some livid bruises on her 
neck and arms, and continued with great rapidity: 

"Remember this! and don't let me suffer more 
for you just now. If I could help you, I would; 
but I have not the power. They don't mean to 



EARLY NOVELS 77 

harm you; and whatever they make you do is no 
fault of yours. Hush! every word from you is a 
blow for me. Give me your hand. Make haste! 
Your hand!" 

She caught the hand which Oliver instinctively 
placed in hers, and, blowing out the light, drew him 
after her up the stairs. The door was opened 
quickly by some one shrouded in the darkness, and 
was as quickly closed when they had passed out. A 
hackney cabriolet was in waiting. With the same 
vehemence which she had exhibited in addressing 
Oliver, the girl pulled him in with her, and drew 
the curtains close. The driver wanted no direc- 
tions, but lashed his horse into full speed without 
the delay of an instant. 

The girl still held Oliver fast by the hand, and 
continued to pour into his ear the warnings and 
assurances she had already imparted. All was so 
quick and hurried that he had scarcely time to rec- 
ollect where he was, or how he came there, when 
the carriage stopped at the house to which the Jew's 
steps had been directed on the previous evening. 

For one brief moment Oliver cast a hurried 
glance along the empty street, and a cry for help 
hung upon his lips. But the girl's voice was in his 
ear, beseeching him in such tones of agony to re- 
member her, that he had not the heart to utter it. 
While he hesitated, the opportunity was gone, for 
he was already in the house, and the door was shut. 



78 DICKENS 

'This way," said the girl, releasing her hold for 
the first time. "Bill!" 

"Hallo !" replied Sikes, appearing at the head of 
the stairs with a candle. "Oh! that's the time of 
day. Come on!" 

This was a very strong expression of approba- 
tion, an uncommonly hearty welcome, from a per- 
son of Mr. Sikes's temperament. Nancy, appearing 
much gratified thereby, saluted him cordially. 

"Bull's-eye's gone home with Tom," observed 
Sikes, as he lighted them up. "He'd have been in 
the way." 

"That's right," rejoined Nancy. 

"So you've got the kid," said Sikes, when they 
had all reached the room, closing the door as he 
spoke. 

"Yes ; here he is," replied Nancy. 

"Did he come quiet?" inquired Sikes. 

"Like a lamb," rejoined Nancy. 

"I'm glad to hear it," said Sikes, looking grimly 
at Oliver; "for the sake of his young carcass, as 
would otherways have suffered for it. Come here, 
young 'un; and let me read you a lectur', which is 
as well got over at once." 

Thus addressing his new pupil, Mr. Sikes pulled 
off Oliver's cap and threw it into a corner; and 
then, taking him by the shoulder, sat himself down 
by the table, and stood the boy in front of him. 

"Now, first; do you know wot this is?" inquired 



EARLY NOVELS 79 

Sikes, taking up a pocket-pistol which lay on the 
table. 

Oliver replied in the affirmative. 

"Well, then, look here," continued Sikes. "This 
is powder, that 'ere's a bullet, and this is a little bit 
of a old hat for waddin'." 

Oliver murmured his comprehension of the dif- 
ferent bodies referred to; and Mr. Sikes proceeded 
to load the pistol, with great nicety and delibera- 
tion. 

"Now it's loaded," said Mr. Sikes, when he had 
finished. 

"Yes, I see it is, sir," replied Oliver. 

"Well," said the robber, grasping Oliver's wrist 
tightly, and putting the barrel so close to his temple 
that they touched; at which moment the boy could 
not repress a start — "if you speak a word when 
you're out o' doors with me, except when I speak 
to you, that loading will be in your head without 
notice. So, if you do make up your mind to speak 
without leave, say your prayers first." 

Having bestowed a scowl upon the object of 
this warning, to increase its effect, Mr. Sikes con- 
tinued : — 

"As near as I know, there isn't anybody as would 
be asking very partickler arter you, if you was dis- 
posed of; so I needn't take this devil-and-all of 
trouble to explain matters to you, if it warn't for 
your own good. D'ye hear me?" 



80 DICKENS 

"The short and the long of what you mean," said 
Nancy, speaking very emphatically, and slightly 
frowning at Oliver, as if to bespeak his serious 
attention to her words, "is, that if you're crossed 
by him in this job you have on hand, you'll prevent 
his ever telling tales afterwards by shooting him 
through the head; and will take your chance of 
swinging for it, as you do for a great many other 
things in the way of business, every month of your 
life." 

"That's it!" observed Mr. Sikes, approvingly; 
"women can always put things in fewest words. 
Except when it's a-blowing up; and then they 
lengthens it out. And now that he's thoroughly 
up to it, let's have some supper, and get a snooze 
before starting." 

In pursuance of this request, Nancy quickly laid 
the cloth, and, disappearing for a few minutes, 
presently returned with a pot of porter and a dish 
of sheep's heads; which gave occasion to several 
pleasant witticisms on the part of Mr. Sikes, 
founded upon the singular coincidence of "jem- 
mies" being a cant name common to them, and also 
to an ingenious implement much used in his pro- 
fession. Indeed, the worthy gentleman, stimulated, 
perhaps, by the immediate prospect of being in ac- 
tive service, was in great spirits and good-humour; 
in proof whereof it may be here remarked that he 
humorously drank all the beer at a draught, and 



EARLY NOVELS 81 

did not utter, on a rough calculation, more than 
fourscore oaths during the whole progress of the 
meal. 

Supper being ended — it may be easily conceived 
that Oliver had no great appetite for it — Mr. Sikes 
disposed of a couple of glasses of spirits and water, 
and threw himself upon the bed, ordering Nancy, 
with many imprecations in case of failure, to call 
him at five precisely. Oliver stretched himself in 
his clothes by command of the same authority on 
a mattress upon the floor; and the girl, mending 
the fire, sat before it, in readiness to rouse them at 
the appointed time. 

For a long time Oliver lay awake, thinking it 
not impossible that Nancy might seek that oppor- 
tunity of whispering some further advice; but the 
girl sat brooding over the fire, without moving, 
save now and then to trim the light. Weary with 
watching and anxiety, he at length fell asleep. 

When he awoke the table was covered with tea 
things, and Sikes was thrusting various articles into 
the pockets of his greatcoat, which hung over the 
back of a chair; while Nancy was busily engaged 
in preparing breakfast. It was not yet daylight, 
for the candle was still burning, and it was quite 
dark outside. A sharp rain, too, was beating 
against the window panes, and the sky looked black 
and cloudy. 

"Now then!" growled Sikes, as Oliver started 



82 DICKENS 

up; "half-past five! Look sharp, or you'll get no 
breakfast, for it's late as it is." 

Oliver was not long in making his toilet; and, 
having taken some breakfast, replied to a surly in- 
quiry from Sikes, by saying he was quite ready. 

Nancy, scarcely looking at the boy, threw him a 
handkerchief to tie round his throat; and Sikes gave 
him a large rough cape to button over his shoul- 
ders. Thus attired, he gave his hand to the robber, 
who, merely pausing to show him with a menacing 
gesture, that he had the pistol in a side-pocket of 
his greatcoat, clasped it firmly in his, and, exchang- 
ing a farewell with Nancy, led him away. 

Oliver turned, for an instant, when they reached 
the door, in the hope of meeting a look from the 
girl. But she had resumed her old seat in front of 
the fire, and sat perfectly motionless before it. 

This might be described as moral melodrama or 
melodrama where character and lesson are fully 
as important as plot. Dickens took the "shilling 
shocker" and made it teach men the fellow feeling 
that makes them wondrous kind. 

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 

The humanitarian tendency which was to make 
Dickens a great reformer was shown in Oliver 
Twist, with its satire on the treatment of the poor 
in workhouse and prison. In the next book, Nich- 



EARLY NOVELS 83 

olas Nkkleby, we get his first famous exposure of 
the evil methods of certain schools of the day. 
Nicholas, a fine young fellow, who in order to sup- 
port his mother and sister Kate has engaged himself 
to teach in Dotheboys Academy in Yorkshire, kept 
by the cruel and avaricious Mr. and Mrs. Squeers, 
has found his employers' methods intolerable, and 
in the scene given breaks out in rebellion against 
them. Smike, a poor half-witted drudge whom 
Nicholas befriends, has attempted to run away and 
been caught and haled back for punishment. 

Nicholas Thrashes Squeers 

The news that Smike had been caught and 
brought back in triumph, ran like wild-fire through 
the hungry community, and expectation was on tip- 
toe all the morning. On tiptoe it was destined to 
remain, however, until afternoon; when Squeers, 
having refreshed himself with his dinner, and fur- 
ther strengthened himself by an extra libation or 
so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amia- 
ble partner) with a countenance of portentous im- 
port, and a fearful instrument of flagellation, 
strong, supple, wax-ended, and new, — in short, pur- 
chased that morning, expressly for the occasion. 

"Is every boy here?" asked Squeers, in a tre- 
mendous voice. 

Every boy was there, but every boy was afraid 



84 DICKENS 

to speak; so Squeers glared along the lines to as- 
sure himself ; and every eye drooped, and every head 
cowered down, as he did so. 

"Each boy keep his place," said Squeers, admin- 
istering his favourite blow to the desk, and regard- 
ing with gloomy satisfaction the universal start 
which it never failed to occasion. "Nickleby! to 
your desk, sir." 

It was remarked by more than one small observer 
that there was a curious and unusual expression in 
the usher's face ; but he took his seat, without open- 
ing his lips in reply. Squeers, casting a triumphant 
glance at his assistant and a look of most compre- 
hensive despotism on the boys, left the room, and 
shortly afterwards returned, dragging Smike by 
the collar — or rather by that fragment of his jacket 
which was nearest the place where his collar would 
have been, had he boasted such a decoration. 

In any other place, the appearance of the 
wretched, jaded, spiritless object would have oc- 
casioned a murmur of compassion and remon- 
strance. It had some effect, even there; for the 
lookers-on moved uneasily in their seats ; and a few 
of the boldest ventured to steal looks at each other, 
expressive of indignation and pity. 

They were lost on Squeers, however, whose gaze 
was fastened on the luckless Smike, as he inquired, 
according to custom in such cases, whether he had 
anything to say for himself. 



EARLY NOVELS 85 

"Nothing, I suppose ?" said Squeers, with a dia- 
bolical grin. 

Smike glanced round, and his eye rested, for an 
instant, on Nicholas, as if he had expected him to 
intercede ; but his look was riveted on his desk. 

"Have you anything to say?" demanded Squeers 
again, giving his right arm two or three flourishes 
to try its power and suppleness. "Stand a little 
out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, my dear; I've hardly 
got room enough." 

"Spare me, sir!" cried Smike. 

"Oh! that's all, is it?" said Squeers. "Yes, I'll 
flog you within an inch of your life, and spare you 
that." 

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Mrs. Squeers, "that's a 
good 'un!" 

"I was driven to do it," said Smike faintly; and 
casting another imploring look about him. 

"Driven to do it, were you?" said Squeers. "Oh ! 
it wasn't your fault; it was mine, I suppose — eh?" 

"A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obsti- 
nate, sneaking dog," exclaimed Mrs. Squeers, taking 
Smike's head under her arm, and administering a 
cuff at every epithet; "what does he mean by that?" 

"Stand aside, my dear," replied Squeers. "We'll 
try and find out." 

Mrs. Squeers, being out of breath with her ex- 
ertions, complied. Squeers caught the boy firmly 
in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his 



86 DICKENS 

body — he was wincing from the lash and uttering 
a scream of pain — it was raised again, and again 
about to fall — when Nicholas Nickleby suddenly 
started up, cried "Stop!" in a voice that made the 
rafters ring. 

"Who cried stop?" said Squeers, turning savagely 
round. 

"I," said Nicholas, stepping forward. "This 
must not go on." 

"Must not go on!" cried Squeers, almost in a 
shriek. 

"No!" thundered Nicholas. 

Aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the in- 
terference, Squeers released his hold of Smike, and 
falling back a pace or two, gazed upon Nicholas 
with looks that were positively frightful. 

"I say must not," repeated Nicholas, nothing 
daunted; "shall not. I will prevent it." 

Squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his 
eyes starting out of his head ; but astonishment had 
actually, for the moment, bereft him of speech. 

"You have disregarded all my quiet interference 
in the miserable lad's behalf," said Nicholas; "you 
have returned no answer to the letter in which I 
begged forgiveness for him, and offered to be re- 
sponsible that he would remain quietly here. Don't 
blame me for this public interference. You have 
brought it upon yourself; not I." 

"Sit down, beggar!" screamed Squeers, almost 



EARLY NOVELS 87 

beside himself with rage, and seizing Smike as he 
spoke. 

"Wretch," rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, "touch him 
at your peril ! I will not stand by, and see it done. 
My blood is up, and I have the strength of ten such 
men as you. Look to yourself, for by Heaven I 
will not spare you, if you drive me on!" 

"Stand back," cried Squeers, brandishing his 
weapon. 

"I have a long series of insults to avenge," said 
Nicholas, flushed with passion ; "and my indignation 
is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised 
on helpless infancy in this foul den. Have a care; 
for if you do raise the devil within me, the conse- 
quences shall fall heavily upon your own head!" 

He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a vio- 
lent outbreak of wrath, and with a cry like the 
howl of a wild beast, spat upon him, and struck 
him a blow across the face with his instrument of 
torture, which raised up a bar of livid flesh as it 
was inflicted. Smarting with the agony of the 
blow, and concentrating into that one moment all 
his feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation, Nicholas 
sprang upon him, wrested the weapon from his 
hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat the ruf- 
fian till he roared for mercy. 

The boys — with the exception of Master Squeers, 
who, coming to his father's assistance, harassed the 
enemy in the rear — moved not, hand or foot; but 



88 DICKENS 

Mrs. Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on 
to the tail of her partner's coat, and endeavoured 
to drag him from his infuriated adversary; while 
Miss Squeers, who had been peeping through the 
key-hole in expectation of a very different scene, 
darted in at the very beginning of the attack, and 
after launching a shower of inkstands at the usher's 
head, beat Nicholas to her heart's content : animat- 
ing herself, at every blow, with the recollection of 
his having refused her proffered love, and thus im- 
parting additional strength to an arm which (as she 
took after her mother in this respect) was, at no 
time, one of the weakest. 

Nicholas, in the full torrent of his violence, felt 
the blows no more than if they had been dealt with 
feathers; but, becoming tired of the noise and up- 
roar, and feeling that his arm grew weak besides, 
he threw all his remaining strength into half-a- 
dozen finishing cuts, and flung Squeers from him, 
with all the force he could muster. The violence 
of his fall precipitated Mrs. Squeers completely over 
an adjacent form; and Squeers, striking his head 
against it in his descent, lay at his full length on 
the ground, stunned and motionless. 

This is one of many scenes which stand for the 
author's power in "situations," in the stage sense. 
His stories have always been in demand for theater 
use; all the main novels have been dramatized. 



EARLY NOVELS 89 

In 1839 Charles Dickens wrote a letter to his 
friend and biographer, John Forster, in which he 
made a suggestion to be transmitted to his publish- 
ers, Chapman and Hall, concerning the bringing out 
of a weekly magazine, a miscellany of essays, 
sketches and narratives, to which Dickens himself 
was to be the chief contributor. The object of the 
author was to have thus a steady outlet for his pen, 
without binding himself too straightly to the tyr- 
anny of a sustained piece of fiction. The idea was 
conceived of a sort of Club, a throw-back to Pick- 
wick, with that worthy and Sam Weller occasionally 
introduced. Various matter was to be furnished by 
the members, who met with an odd old fellow, 
Master Humphrey, who keeps his manuscripts in 
a quaint clock — hence "Master Humphrey's Clock" 
as a title. 

This idea was put into action, and the sales of 
the first number started off well, but when the pub- 
lic, already enamoured of Dickens, the story-teller, 
saw that there was to be no continuous fiction, the 
circulation lagged. Meanwhile, the author of Nick- 
leby had the germ of Little Nell in his mind; he 
began Old Curiosity Shop, the response was quick 
and enthusiastic, and what was planned for a mis- 
cellany became another novel, one of the most be- 
loved and famous of his whole career. Master 
Humphrey was forgotten, as the child-guardian of 
her weak grandfather took the stage, along with 



90 DICKENS 

Dick Swiveller, the wee slavey he called by the high- 
sounding name of the Marchioness, and the other 
characters that have endeared this book to countless 
readers. 

OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 

Nothing in the whole range of Dickens's work is 
preserved in more affectionate memory than his pic- 
ture of Little Nell and her weak yet loving grand- 
father. A later and sterner critical taste has de- 
clared that the graver side of the tale, centering 
in the misfortunes of the famous pair and involving 
the pathetic death of the grandchild, is sentimental 
and melodramatic. But however this may be, such 
comic characterizations as are here illustrated in 
the person of Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness, 
shine but the more brightly with time. 

Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness 

While these acts and deeds were in progress in 
and out of the office of Sampson Brass, Richard 
Swiveller, being often left alone therein, began to 
find the time hang heavy on his hands. For the 
better preservation of his cheerfulness therefore, 
and to prevent his faculties from rusting, he pro- 
vided himself with a cribbage-board and a pack of 
cards, and accustomed himself to play at cribbage 
with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes 



EARLY NOVELS 91 

even fifty thousand pounds a side, besides many 
hazardous bets to a considerable amount. 

As these games were very silently conducted, not- 
withstanding the magnitude of the interests in- 
volved, Mr. Swiveller began to think that on those 
evenings when Mr. and Miss Brass were out (and 
they often went out now) he heard a kind of snort- 
ing or hard-breathing sound in the direction of the 
door, which it occurred to him, after some reflec- 
tion, must proceed from the small servant, who 
always had a cold from damp living. Looking in- 
tently that way one night, he plainly distinguished 
an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole ; and 
having now no doubt that his suspicions were cor- 
rect, he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon 
her before she was aware of his approach. 

"Oh! I didn't mean any harm indeed, upon my 
word I didn't," cried the small servant, struggling 
like a much larger one. "It's so very dull, down- 
stairs. Please don't you tell upon me, please don't." 

"Tell upon you!" said Dick. "Do you mean to 
say you were looking through the keyhole for com- 
pany?" 

"Yes, upon my word I was," replied the small 
servant. 

"How long have you been cooling your eye 
there?" said Dick. 

"Oh, ever since you first began to play them 
cards, and long before," 



92 DICKENS 

Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises 
with which he had refreshed himself after the fa- 
tigues of business, and to all of which, no doubt, 
the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted 
Mr. Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on 
such points, and recovered himself speedily. 

"Well, — come in" — he said, after a little consid- 
eration. "Here — sit down, and I'll teach you how 
to play." 

"Oh! I durstn't do it," rejoined the small ser- 
vant; "Miss Sally 'ud kill me, if she know'd I come 
up here." 

"Have you got a fire downstairs?" said Dick. 

"A very little one," replied the small servant. 

"Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she know'd I went 
down there, so I'll come," said Richard, putting the 
cards into his pocket. "Why, how thin you are! 
What do you mean by it?" 

"It an't my fault." 

"Could you eat any bread and meat ?" said Dick, 
taking down his hat. "Yes? Ah! I thought so. 
Did you ever taste beer?" 

"I had a sip of it once," said the small servant. 

"Here's a state of things!" cried Mr. Swiveller, 
raising his eyes to the ceiling. "She never tasted 
it — it can't be tasted in a sip! Why, how old are 
you?" 

"I don't know." 

Mr. Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and 



EARLY NOVELS 93 

appeared thoughtful for a moment; then, bidding 
the child mind the door until he came back, van- 
ished straightway. 

Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from 
the public-house, who bore in one hand a plate of 
bread and beef, and in the other a great pot, filled 
with some very fragrant compound, which sent 
forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, 
made after a particular recipe which Mr. Swiveller 
had imparted to the landlord, at a period when he 
was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate 
his friendship. Relieving the boy of his burden at 
the door, and charging his little companion to fasten 
it to prevent surprise, Mr. Swiveller followed her 
into the kitchen. 

"There!" said Richard, putting the plate before 
her. "First of all clear that off, and then you'll see 
what's next." 

The small servant needed no second bidding, and 
the plate was soon empty. 

"Next," said Dick, handing the purl, "take a pull 
at that; but moderate your transports, you know, 
for you're not used to it. Well, is it good?" 

"Oh! isn't it?" said the small servant. 

Mr. Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all ex- 
pression by this reply, and took a long draught 
himself; steadfastly regarding his companion while 
he did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he ap- 
plied himself to teaching her the game, which she 



94 DICKENS 

soon learnt tolerably well, being both sharp-witted 
and cunning. 

"Now/' said Mr. Swiveller, putting two sixpences 
into a saucer, and trimming the wretched candle, 
when the cards had been cut and dealt, "those are 
the stakes. If you win, you get 'em all. If I win, 
I get 'em. To make it seem more real and pleasant, 
I shall call you the Marchioness, do you hear?" 

The small servant nodded. 

"Then, Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller, "fire 
away !" 

The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight 
in both hands, considered which to play, and Mr. 
Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air 
which such society required, took another pull at 
the tankard, and waited for her lead. 

Barnaby Rudge is an earlier sally in the field of 
historic romance in which the masterpiece is A Tale 
of Two Cities, so that our illustration may be drawn 
from the later book. Nevertheless, it is a striking 
study of the Gordon riots ; and the character of poor 
Barnaby himself — one of the half-witted folk so 
tenderly handled by the author — of Dolly Varden, 
Simon Taperwit, and others still, are additions to 
the Dickens gallery. Moreover, there is a marked 
gain in constructional care and closeness over the 
previous books ; the author evidently is studying the 
technic of his craft. 



CHAPTER V 
Maturity 

IN a story like Martin Chuzzlewit, which in 
ground-plan is a melodrama with a murder cen- 
tral in its structure, and yet contains some of the 
author's notable comedy, with unforgettable figures 
in it like the hypocrite Pecksniff, the humble ideal- 
ist, Tom Pinch, and the incurable optimist, Mark 
Tapley, we see Dickens still feeling his way toward 
that organic handling of story which means com- 
plete mastery of the material. The novel is loosely 
constructed, and the American scenes were intro- 
duced after the book was under way, in order to 
quicken interest, although a deflection from the main 
business of the tale, which was to show a well-inten- 
tioned though austere uncle reforming a nephew 
through a ruse, while a hypocritical knave sought 
to ruin the plan. In the maturer novels following 
this able but unequal book, that is to say, in Dom- 
bey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak House, the 
reader may note not only the extension of the por- 
trait gallery of Dickens's "adorable drolls" and ten- 
der-hearted black sheep, but the improving of his 
fictional art in the matter of close-knit structure 

95 



96 DICKENS 

and a clearer sense of organism as a whole. In a 
word, the great master of tears and smiles, the cre- 
ator of eccentric character and extravagant scene, 
was growing mellow both in his art and his view 
of life; the teacher in him was coming to be a con- 
trolling power, though not at the expense of his 
natural gifts as story-teller. It should always be 
understood of Dickens, that the frank didacticism 
of his intention and method did not interfere with 
his possession of a genius for the depiction of the 
foibles, frailties and virtues of mankind. Teacher, 
humanitarian, he more plainly became as he con- 
tinued to produce stories for a full generation, from 
1836 to his death in 1870. But representative nov- 
elist he remained, and he became a better artist as 
he matured. 

MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 

One of Dickens's most justly famed portraits is 
that of Sarah Gamp in this story, a bibulous and 
venal nurse of the evil old dispensation. Her evil- 
ness is not whitewashed, yet the author manages 
so to bring out the comic aspects of her type as to 
set her beside Tony Weller in the gallery of drolls 
which Dickens has painted for the world. The un- 
dertaker, Mr. Mould, is also a capital example of 
the way in which he extracts fun from minor per- 
sonages and makes them memorable. 



MATURITY 97 

Mrs. Gamp Calls on Mr. Mould 

"Tell Mrs. Gamp to come upstairs," said Mould. 
"Now, Mrs. Gamp, what's your news?" 

The lady in question was by this time in the door- 
way, curtsying to Mrs. Mould. At the same mo- 
ment a peculiar fragrance was borne upon the 
breeze, as if a passing fairy had hiccoughed, and 
had previously been to a wine-vault. 

Mrs. Gamp made no response to Mr. Mould, but 
curtsied to Mrs. Mould again, and held up her hands 
and eyes, as in a devout thanksgiving that she 
looked so well. She was neatly but not gaudily 
attired, in the weeds she had worn when Mr. Peck- 
sniff had the pleasure of making her acquaintance, 
and was perhaps the turning of a scale more snuffy. 

"There are some happy creeturs," Mrs. Gamp 
observed, "as time runs back'ards with, and you 
are one, Mrs. Mould; not that he need do nothing 
except use you in his most owldacious way for 
years to come, I'm sure, for young you are and will 
be. I says to Mrs. Harris," Mrs. Gamp continued, 
"only t'other day — the last Monday evening fort- 
night as ever dawned upon this Piljian's Projiss 
of a mortal wale — I says to Mrs. Harris when she 
says to me, 'Years and our trials, Mrs. Gamp, sets 
marks upon us all/ — 'Say not the words, Mrs. Har- 
ris, if you and me is to be continual friends, for 
sech is not the case. Mrs. Mould,' I says, making 



98 DICKENS 

so free, I will confess, as use the name" (she curt- 
sied here), " 'is one of them that goes agen the ob- 
serwation straight; and never, Mrs. Harris, whilst 
I've a drop of breath to draw, will I set by, and not 
stand up, don't think it.' 'I ast your pardon, ma'am/ 
says Mrs. Harris. *I humbly grant your grace ; for 
if ever a woman lived as would see her feller cree- 
turs into fits to serve her friends, well do I know 
that woman's name is Sairey Gamp.' " 

At this point she was fain to stop for breath; 
and advantage may be taken of the circumstance 
to state that a fearful mystery surrounded this lady 
of the name of Harris, whom no one in the circle 
of Mrs. Gamp's acquaintance had ever seen, neither 
did any human being know her place of residence, 
though Mrs. Gamp appeared on her own showing 
to be in constant communication with her. There 
were conflicting rumours on the subject; but the 
prevalent opinion was that she was a phantom of 
Mrs. Gamp's brain — as Messrs. Doe and Roe are 
fictions of the law — created for the express purpose 
of holding visionary dialogues with her on all man- 
ner of subjects, and invariably winding up with a 
compliment to the excellence of her nature. 

"And likeways what a pleasure," said Mrs. Gamp, 
turning with a tearful smile towards the daughters, 
"to see them two young ladies as I know'd afore a 
tooth in their pretty heads was cut, and have many 
a day seen — ah, the sweet creeturs! — playing at 



MATURITY 99 

berryins down in the shop, and follerin' the order- 
book to its long home in the iron safe ! But that's 
all past and over, Mrs. Mould" — and she shook her 
head waggishly — "that's all past and over now ; sir, 
an'tit?" 

"Changes, Mrs. Gamp, changes!" returned the 
undertaker. 

"More changes, too, to come, afore we've done 
with changes, sir," said Mrs. Gamp, nodding yet 
more waggishly than before. "Young ladies with 
such faces thinks of something else besides berry- 
ins, don't they, sir?" 

"I am sure I don't know, Mrs. Gamp," said 
Mould, with a chuckle. — "Not bad in Mrs. Gamp, 
my dear?" 

"Oh, yes, you do know, sir!" said Mrs. Gamp; 
"and so does Mrs. Mould, your 'ansome pardner, 
too, sir; and so do I, although the blessing of a 
daughter was deniged me; which, if we had had 
one, Gamp would certainly have drunk its little 
shoes right off its feet, as with our precious boy 
Tie did, and arterwards send the child a errand to 
sell his wooden leg for any money it would fetch 
as matches in the rough, and bring it home in liquor. 
Oh, yes, you do know, sir," said Mrs. Gamp, wip- 
ing her eyes with her shawl, and resuming the 
thread of her discourse. "There's something be- 
sides births and berryins in the newspapers, an't 
there, Mr. Mould?" 



100 DICKENS 

Mr. Mould winked at Mrs. Mould, whom he had 
by this time taken on his knee, and said, "No doubt. 
A good deal more, Mrs. Gamp. — Upon my life, 
Mrs. Gamp is very far from bad, my dear!" 

"There's marryings, an't there, sir?" said Mrs. 
Gamp, while both the daughters blushed and tit- 
tered. "Bless their precious hearts, and well they 
knows it! Well you know'd it, too, and well did 
Mrs. Mould, when you was at their time of life! 
But my opinion is, you're all of one age now. For 
as to you and Mrs. Mould, sir, ever having grand- 
children — " 

"Oh! Fie, fie! Nonsense, Mrs. Gamp," replied 
the undertaker. "Devilish smart, though. Ca-pi- 
tal !" This was in a whisper. "My dear" — aloud 
again — "Mrs. Gamp can drink a glass of rum, I 
dare say. — Sit down, Mrs. Gamp, sit down." 

Mrs. Gamp took the chair that was nearest the 
door, and casting up her eyes towards the ceiling, 
feigned to be wholly insensible to the fact of a glass 
of rum being in preparation, until it was placed in 
her hand by one of the young ladies, when she ex- 
hibited the greatest surprise. 

"A thing," she said, "as hardly ever, Mrs. Mould, 
occurs with me unless it is when I am indispoged, 
and find my hanf a pint of porter settling heavy 
on the chest. Mrs. Harris often and often says to 
me, 'Sairey Gamp,' she says, 'you raly do amaze 
me !' 'Mrs. Harris,' I says to her, 'why so ? Give 



MATURITY 101 

it a name, I beg.' Telling the truth then, ma'am,' 
says Mrs. Harris, 'and shaming him as shall be 
nameless betwixt you and me, never did I think till 
I know'd you as any woman could sick-nurse, and 
monthly likeways, on the little that you takes to 
drink/ 'Mrs. Harris/ I says to her, 'none on us 
knows what we can do till we tries; and wunst, 
when me and Gamp kept 'ouse, I thought so too. 
But now/ I says, 'my hanf a pint of porter fully 
satisfies; perwisin', Mrs. Harris, that it is brought 
reg'lar, and draw'd mild. Whether I sicks or 
monthlies, ma'am, I hope I does my duty; but I 
am but a poor woman, and I earns my living hard ; 
therefore I do require it, which I makes confession, 
to be brought reg'lar and draw'd mild.' " 

The precise connection between these observations 
and the glass of rum did not appear ; for Mrs. Gamp 
proposing as a toast, "The best of lucks to all!" 
took off the dram in quite a scientific manner, with- 
out any further remarks. 

"And what's your news, Mrs. Gamp?" asked 
Mould again, as that lady wiped her lips upon her 
shawl, and nibbled a corner off a soft biscuit, which 
she appeared to carry in her pocket as a provision 
against contingent drams. "How's Mr. Chuffey?" 

"Mr. Chuffey, sir," she replied, "is jest as usual; 
he an't no better, and he an't no worse. I take it 
very kind in the gentleman to have wrote up to you 
and said, 'Let Mrs. Gamp take care of him till I 



102 DICKENS 

come home ;' but ev' ythink he does is kind. There 
an't a many like him. If there was, we shouldn't 
want no churches." 

"What do you want to speak to me about, Mrs. 
Gamp?" said Mould, coming to the point. 

"Jest this, sir," Mrs. Gamp returned, "with 
thanks to you for asking. There is a gent, sir, at 
the Bull in Holborn, as has been took ill there, and 
is bad abed. They have a day nurse as was recom- 
mended from Bartholomew's; and well I knows her, 
Mr. Mould, her name bein' Mrs. Prig, the best of 
creeturs. But she is otherwise engaged at night, 
and they are in wants of night- watching ; consequent 
she says to them, having reposed the greatest friend- 
liness in me for twenty year, 'The soberest person 
going, and the best of blessings in a sick-room, is 
Mrs. Gamp. Send a boy to Kingsgate Street/ she 
says, 'and snap her up at any price, for Mrs. Gamp 
is worth her weight and more in goldian guineas/ 
My landlord brings the message down to me, and 
says, 'Bein' in a light place where you are, and this 
job promising so well, why not unite the two?' 
'No, sir,' I says, 'not unbeknown to Mr. Mould, 
and therefore do not think it. But I will go to Mr. 
Mould,' I says, 'and ast him, if you like.' " Here 
she looked sideways at the undertaker, and came 
to a stop. 

"Night- watching, eh?" said Mould, rubbing his 
chin. 



MATURITY 103 

"From eight o'clock till eight, sir. I will not 
deceive you," Mrs. Gamp rejoined. 

"And then go back, eh?" said Mould. 

"Quite free then, sir, to attend to Mr. Chuffey. 
His ways bein' quiet, and his hours early, he'd be 
abed, sir, nearly all the time. I will not deny," said 
Mrs. Gamp, with meekness, "that I am but a poor 
woman, and that the money is a object ; but do not 
let that act upon you, Mr. Mould. Rich folks may 
ride on camels, but it an't so easy for 'em to see 
out of a needle's eye. That is my comfort, and I 
hope I knows it." 

"Well, Mrs. Gamp," observed Mould, "I don't 
see any particular objection to your earning an 
honest penny, under such circumstances. I should 
keep it quiet, I think, Mrs. Gamp. I wouldn't men- 
tion it to Mr. Chuzzlewit on his return, for instance, 
unless it were necessary, or he asked you point- 
blank." 

"The very words was on my lips, sir," Mrs. Gamp 
rejoined. "Suppoging that the gent should die, I 
hope I might take + he liberty of saying as I know'd 
some one in the undertaking line, and yet give no 
offence to you, sir?" 

"Certainly, Mrs. Gamp," said Mould, with much 
condescension. "You might casually remark, in 
such a case, that we do the thing pleasantly and in 
a great variety of styles, and are generally consid- 
ered to make it as agreeable as possible to the feel- 



104 DICKENS 

ings of the survivors. But don't obtrude it — don't 
obtrude it. Easy, easy ! My dear, you may as well 
give Mrs. Gamp a card or two, if you please." 

Mrs. Gamp received them, and scenting no more 
rum in the wind (for the bottle was locked up 
again), rose to take her departure. 

"Wishing ev'ry happiness to this happy family," 
said Mrs. Gamp, "with all my heart. Good arter- 
noon, Mrs. Mould! If I was Mr. Mould, I should 
be jealous of you, ma'am; and I'm sure, if I was 
you, I should be jealous of Mr. Mould." 

"Tut, tut! Bah, bah! Go along, Mrs. Gamp!" 
cried the delighted undertaker. 

"As to the young ladies," said Mrs. Gamp, drop- 
ping a curtsy, "bless their sweet looks ! How they 
can ever reconcize it with their duties to be so grown 
up with sech young parents, it an't for sech as me 
to give a guess at." 

"Nonsense, nonsense. Be off, Mrs. Gamp!" cried 
Mould. But in the height of his gratification, he 
actually pinched Mrs. Mould as he said it. 

"I'll tell you what, my dear," he observed, when 
Mrs. Gamp had at last withdrawn, and shut the 
door, "that's a ve-ry shrewd woman. That's a 
woman whose intellect is immensely superior to her 
station in life. That's a woman who observes and 
reflects in an uncommon manner. She's the sort 
of woman, now," said Mould, drawing his silk hand- 
kerchief over his head again, and composing him- 



MATURITY 105 

self for a nap, "one would almost feel disposed to 
bury for nothing, and do it neatly too!" 

DOMBEY AND SON 

This book might be described as primarily a story 
having for theme the humbling of the pride of a 
proud father whose little son, upon whom he has 
counted to perpetuate the worldly honor of the 
family, dies, while the neglected daughter finally 
takes his place in the softened heart of the parent, 
who, through her agency, learns a fundamental les- 
son of life. There is nothing finer in all Dickens's 
exhibition of humanity than his tenderly perceptive 
portrayal of childhood; a present-day educator has 
declared that no man of English race has done so 
much for child pedagogy as our author. And little 
Paul Dombey is one of the choicest creations of 
the hand which also drew the Doll's Dressmaker, 
and young David, and Little Nell, and Jo, the street 
boy, and Tiny Tim, and others yet in the considera- 
tion of whom our eyes grow moist. 

What the Waves Were Always Saying 

Paul had never risen from his little bed. He 
lay there listening to the noises in the street, quite 
tranquilly ; not caring much how the time went, but 
watching it and watching everything about him with 
observing eyes. 



106 DICKENS 

When the sunbeams struck into his room through 
the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall 
like golden water, he knew that evening was com- 
ing on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As 
the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping 
up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen 
into night. Then he thought how the long streets 
were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars 
were shining overhead. His fancy had a strange 
tendency to wander to the river, which he knew 
was flowing through the great city: and now he 
thought how black it was, and how deep it would 
look, reflecting the hosts of stars — and more than 
all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the sea. 

As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in 
the street became so rare that he could hear them 
coming, count them as they passed, and lose them 
in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the 
many-coloured ring about the candle, and wait pa- 
tiently for day. His only trouble was, the swift 
and rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try 
to stop it — to stem it with his childish hands — or 
choke its way with sand — and when he saw it com- 
ing on, resistless, he cried out! But a word from 
Florence, who was always at his side, restored him 
to himself; and leaning his poor head upon her 
breast, he told Floy of his dream, and smiled. 

When day began to dawn again, he watched for 



MATURITY 107 

the sun ; and when its cheerful light began to sparkle 
in the room, he pictured to himself — pictured! he 
saw — the high church towers rising up into the 
morning sky, the town reviving, waking, starting 
into life once more, the river, glistening as it rolled 
(but rolling fast as ever), and the country bright 
with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by de- 
grees into the street below ; the servants in the house 
were roused and busy; faces looked in at the door, 
and voices asked his attendants softly how he was. 
Paul always answered himself, "I am better. I am 
a great deal better, thank you ! Tell papa so !" 

By little and little, he got tired of the bustle of 
the day, the noise of carriages and carts, and people 
passing and repassing; and would fall asleep, or 
be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense again 
— the child could hardly tell whether this were in 
his sleeping or his waking moments — of that rush- 
ing river. "Why, will it never stop, Floy?" he 
would sometimes ask her. "It is bearing me away, 
I think!" 

But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; 
and it was his daily delight to make her lay her 
head down on his pillow, and take some rest. 

"You are always watching me, Floy. Let me 
watch you, now !" They would prop him up with 
cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would 
recline the while she lay beside him: bending for- 



108 DICKENS 

ward oftentimes to kiss her, and whispering to those 
who were near that she was tired, and how she had 
sat up so many nights beside him. 

Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, 
would gradually decline ; and again the golden water 
would be dancing on the wall. 

He was visited by as many as three grave doctors 
— they used to assemble downstairs, and come up 
together — and the room was so quiet, and Paul was 
so observant of them (though he never asked of 
anybody what they said) that he even knew the dif- 
ference in the sound of their watches. But his 
interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always 
took his seat on the side of the bed. For Paul had 
heard them say long ago, that that gentleman had 
been with his mamma when she clasped Florence 
in her arms, and died. And he could not forget it, 
now. He liked him for it. He was not afraid. 

The people round him changed as unaccountably 
as on that first night at Doctor Blimber's — except 
Florence; Florence never changed — and what had 
been Sir Parker Peps, was now his father, sitting 
with his head upon his hand. Old Mrs. Pipchin 
dozing in an easy-chair, often changed to Miss Tox, 
or his aunt; and Paul was quite content to shut 
his eyes again, and see what happened next with- 
out emotion. But this figure with its head upon its 
hand returned so often, and remained so long, and 
sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being 



MATURITY 109 

spoken to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul 
began to wonder languidly, if it were real; and 
in the night-time saw it sitting there, with fear. 

"Floy!" he said. "What is that?" 

"Where, dearest?" 

"There ! at the bottom of the bed." 

"There's nothing there, except papa!" 

The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and com- 
ing to the bedside, said : "My own boy ! Don't 
you know me?" 

Paul looked in the face, and thought, was this 
his father ? But the face, so altered to his thinking, 
thrilled while he gazed, as if it were in pain; and 
before he could reach out both his hands to take it 
between them, and draw it towards him, the figure 
turned away quickly from the little bed, and went 
out at the door. 

Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, 
but he knew what she was going to say, and stopped 
her with his face against her lips. The next time 
he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the 
bed, he called to it. 

"Don't be so sorry for me, dear papa! Indeed 
I am quite happy!" 

His father coming, and bending down to him — 
which he did quickly, and without first pausing by 
the bedside — Paul held him round the neck, and 
repeated those words to him several times, and very 
earnestly; and Paul never saw him in his room 



110 DICKENS 

again at any time, whether it were day or night, 
but he called out, "Don't be so sorry for me! In- 
deed I am quite happy!" This was the beginning 
of his always saying in the morning that he was a 
great deal better, and that they were to tell his 
father so. 

How many times the golden water danced upon 
the wall; how many nights the dark, dark river 
rolled towards the sea in spite of him; Paul never 
counted, never sought to know. If their kindness 
or his sense of it, could have increased, they were 
more kind, and he more grateful every day; but 
whether they were many days or few, appeared of 
little moment now to the gentle boy. 

One night he had been thinking of his mother, 
and her picture in the drawing-room downstairs, 
and had thought she must have loved sweet Flor- 
ence better than his father did, to have held her 
in her arms when she felt that she was dying — for 
even he, her brother, who had such dear love for 
her, could have no greater wish than that. The 
train of thought suggested to him to inquire if he 
had ever seen his mother; for he could not remem- 
ber whether they had told him yes or no, the river 
running very fast, and confusing his mind. 

"Floy, did I ever see mamma?" 

"No, darling, why?" 

"Did I ever see any kind face, like mamma's, 
looking at me when I was a baby, Floy ?" 



MATURITY 111 

He asked incredulously, as if he had some vision 
of a face before him. 

"Oh yes, dear!" 

"Whose, Floy?" 

"Your old nurse's. Often." 

"And where is my old nurse!" said Paul. "Is 
she dead too? Floy, are we all dead, except you?" 

There was a hurry in the room for an instant 
— longer, perhaps ; but it seemed no more — then all 
was still again; and Florence, with her face quite 
colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm. 
Her arm trembled very much. 

"Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!" 

"She is not here, darling. She shall come to- 
morrow." 

"Thank you, Floy!" 

Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell 
asleep. When he awoke the sun was high, and the 
broad day was clear and warm. He lay a little, 
looking at the windows, which were open, and the 
curtains rustling in the air, and waving to and fro : 
then he said, "Floy, is it to-morrow? Is she come?" 

Some one seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps 
it was Susan. Paul thought he heard her telling 
him when he had closed his eyes again, that she 
would soon be back; but he did not open them to 
see. She kept her word — perhaps she had never 
been away — but the next thing that happened was 
a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul 



112 DICKENS 

woke — woke mind and body — and sat upright in 
his bed. He saw them now about him. There was 
no gray mist before them, as there had been some- 
times in the night. He knew them every one, and 
called them by their names. 

"And who is this? Is this my old nurse?" said 
the child, regarding, with a radiant smile, a figure 
coming in. 

Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed 
those tears at sight of him, and called him her dear 
boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. 
No other woman would have stooped down by his 
bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to 
her lips and breast, as one who had some right to 
fondle it. No other woman would have so forgot- 
ten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so 
full of tenderness and pity. 

"Floy! this is a kind good face!" said Paul. "I 
am glad to see it again. Don't go away, old nurse. 
Stay here!" 

His senses were all quickened, and he heard a 
name he knew. 

"Who was that, who said ' Walter?' " he asked, 
looking round. "Some one said Walter. Is he 
here? I should like to see him very much." 

Nobody replied directly ; but his father soon said 
to Susan, "Call him back, then : let him come up !" 
After a short pause of expectation, during which 
he looked with smiling interest and wonder on his 



MATURITY 113 

nurse, and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, 
Walter was brought into the room. His open face 
and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made 
him a favorite with Paul ; and when Paul saw him, 
he stretched out his hand, and said, "Good-by!" 

"Good-by, my child !" cried Mrs. Pipchin, hurry- 
ing to his bed's head. "Not good-by ?" 

For an instant Paul looked at her with the wist- 
ful face with which he had so often gazed upon 
her in his corner by the fire. "Ah, yes," he said, 
placidly, "good-by! Walter dear, good-by!" — turn- 
ing his head to where he stood, and putting out his 
hand again. "Where is papa?" 

He felt his fathers breath upon his cheek, before 
the words had parted from his lips. 

"Remember Walter, dear papa," he whispered, 
looking in his face. "Remember Walter. I was 
fond of Walter!" The feeble hand waved in the 
air, as if it cried "good-by!" to Walter once again. 

"Now lay me down," he said, "and Floy, come 
close to me, and let me see you !" 

Sister and brother wound their arms around each 
other, and the golden light came streaming in, and 
fell upon them locked together. 

"How fast the river runs, between its green banks 
and the rushes, Floy! But it's very near the sea. 
I hear the waves ! They always said so !" 

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat 
upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green 



114 PICKENS 

the banks were now, how bright the flowers grow- 
ing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the 
boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And 
now there was a shore before him. Who stood 
on the bank! — 

He put his hands together, as he had been used 
to do at his prayers. He did not remove his arms 
to do it ; but they saw him fold them so, behind her 
neck. 

"Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the 
face. But tell them that the print upon the stairs 
at school is not divine enough. The light about the 
head is shining on me as I go!" 

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, 
and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old 
fashion! The fashion that came in with our first 
garments, and will last unchanged until our race 
has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled 
up like a scroll. The old, old fashion — Death ! 

Oh thank God, all who see it, for that older fash- 
ion yet, of Immortality! And look upon us, angels 
of young children, with regards not quite estranged, 
when the swift river bears us to the ocean! 

But the grave texture of this typical story is 
lightened by some of the very best of the comic 
creations by which, perhaps, the world most readily 
remembers him: Captain Tuttle, and Toots, Mrs. 



MATURITY 115 

McStinger, and Major Bagstock, Susan Nipper, 
Miss Tox and Mrs. Pipchin. 

Captain Cuttle Does a Little Business for the 
Young People 

After taking a glass of warm rum-and- water at 
a tavern close by, to collect his thoughts, the Captain 
made a rush down the court, lest its good effects 
should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr. 
Perch. 

"Matey," said the Captain, in persuasive accents. 
"One of your Governors is named Carker." 

Mr. Perch admitted it; but gave him to under- 
stand, as in official duty bound, that all his Gov- 
ernors were engaged, and never expected to be 
disengaged any more. 

"Look'ee here, mate," said the Captain in his ear; 
"my name's Cap'en Cuttle." 

The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to 
him, but Mr. Perch eluded the attempt ; not so much 
in design, as in starting at the sudden thought that 
such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs. Perch 
might, in her then condition, be destructive to that 
lady's hopes. 

"If you'll be so good as just report Cap'en Cuttle 
here, when you get a chance," said the Captain, 
"I'll wait." 



116 DICKENS 

Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr. 
Perch's bracket, and drawing out his handkerchief 
from the crown of the glazed hat, which he jammed 
between his knees (without injury to its shape, for 
nothing human could bend it), rubbed his head well 
all over, and appeared refreshed. He subsequently 
arranged his hair with his hook, and sat looking 
round the office, contemplating the clerks with a 
serene respect. 

The Captain's equanimity was so impenetrable, 
and he was altogether so mysterious a being, that 
Perch the messenger was daunted. 

"What name was it you said?" asked Mr. Perch, 
bending down over him as he sat on the bracket. 

"Cap'en," in a deep hoarse whisper. 

"Yes," said Mr. Perch, keeping time with his 
head. 

"Cuttle." 

"Oh!" said Mr. Perch, in the same tone, for he 
caught it, and couldn't help it; the Captain, in his 
diplomacy, was so impressive. "I'll see if he's 
disengaged now. I don't know. Perhaps he may 
be for a minute." 

"Aye, aye, my lad, I won't detain him longer 
than a minute," said the Captain, nodding with all 
the weighty importance that he felt within him. 

Perch, soon returning, said, "Will Captain Cuttle 
walk this way?" 

Mr. Carker, the Manager, standing on the hearth- 



MATURITY 117 

rug before the empty fireplace, which was orna- 
mented with a castellated sheet of brown paper, 
looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very 
special encouragement. 

"Mr. Carker?" said Captain Cuttle. 

"I believe so," said Mr. Carker, showing all his 
teeth. 

The Captain liked his answering with a smile; 
it looked pleasant. "You see," began the Captain, 
rolling his eyes slowly round the little room, and 
taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted ; 
"I'm a seafaring man myself, Mr. Carker, and 
Wal'r, as is on your books here, is almost a son 
of mine." 

"Walter Gay ?" said Mr. Carker, showing all his 
teeth again. 

"Wal'r Gay it is," replied the Captain, "right !" 
The Captain's manner expressed a warm approval 
of Mr. Carker's quickness of perception. "I'm a 
intimate friend of his and his uncle's. Perhaps," 
said the Captain, "you may have heard your head 
Governor mention my name? — Captain Cuttle." 

"No!" said Mr. Carker, with a still wider dem- 
onstration than before. 

"Well," resumed the Captain, "I've the pleasure 
of his acquaintance. I waited upon him down on 
the Sussex coast there, with my young friend Wal'r, 
when — in short, when there was a little accommo- 
dation wanted." The Captain nodded his head in 



11§ DICKENS 

a manner that was at once comfortable, easy, and 
expressive. "You remember, I dare say?" 

"I think," said Mr. Carker, "I had the honour 
of arranging the business." 

"To be sure!" returned the Captain. "Right 
again ! you had. Now I've took the liberty of com- 
ing here — " 

"Won't you sit down?" said Mr. Carker, smiling. 

"Thank'ee," returned the Captain, availing him- 
self of the offer. "A man does get more way upon 
himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when he sits 
down. Won't you take a cheer yourself?" 

"No, thank you," said the Manager, standing, 
perhaps from the force of winter habit, with his 
back against the chimneypiece, and looking down 
upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and 
gum. "You have taken the liberty, you were going 
to say — though it's none — " 

"Thank'ee kindly, my lad," returned the Captain : 
"of coming here, on account of my friend Wal'r. 
Sol Gills, his uncle, is a man of science, and in 
science he may be considered a clipper; but he an't 
what I should altogether call a able seaman — not 
a man of practice. Wal'r is as trim a lad as ever 
stepped; but he's a little down by the head in one 
respect, and that is modesty. Now what I should 
wish to put to you," said the Captain, lowering his 
voice, and speaking in a kind of confidential growl, 
"in a friendly way, entirely between you and me, 



MATURITY 119 

and for my own private reckoning, 'till your head 
Governor has wore round a bit, and I can come 
alongside of him, is this. — Is everything right and 
comfortable here, and is Wal'r out'ard bound with 
a pretty fair wind?" 

"What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?" re- 
turned Carker, gathering up his skirts and settling 
himself in his position. "You are a practical man; 
what do you think?" 

The acuteness and significance of the Captain's 
eye as he cocked it in reply, no words short of those 
unutterable Chinese words before referred to could 
describe. 

"Come!" said the Captain, unspeakably encour- 
aged, "what do you say? Am I right or wrong?" 

So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, 
emboldened and incited by Mr. Carker's smiling 
urbanity, that he felt himself in as fair a condition 
to put the question, as if he had expressed his senti- 
ments with the utmost elaboration. 

"Right," said Mr. Carker, "I have no doubt." 

"Out'ard bound with fair weather, then, I say," 
cried Captain Cuttle. 

Mr. Carker smiled assent. 

"Wind right astarn, and plenty of it," pursued 
the Captain. 

Mr. Carker smiled assent again. 

"Aye, aye!" said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved 
and pleased. "I know'd how she headed, well 
enough; I told Wal'r so. Thank'ee, thank'ee." 



120 DICKENS 

"Gay has brilliant prospects," observed Mr. Car- 
ker, stretching his mouth wider yet : "all the world 
before him." 

"All the world and his wife too, as the saying 
is," returned the delighted Captain. 

At the word "wife" (which he had uttered with- 
out design), the Captain stopped, cocked his eye 
again, and putting the glazed hat on the top of the 
knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways 
at his always smiling friend. 

"I'd bet a gill of old Jamaica," said the Captain, 
eyeing him attentively, "that I know what you're 
smiling at." 

Mr. Carker took his cue, and smiled the more. 

"It goes no farther?" said the Captain, making 
a poke at the door with the knobby stick to assure 
himself that it was shut. 

"Not an inch," said Mr. Carker. 

"You're a thinking of a capital F perhaps?" said 
the Captain. 

Mr. Carker didn't deny it. 

"Anything about a L," said the Captain, "or 
aO?" 

Mr. Carker still smiled. 

"Am I right again?" inquired the Captain in a 
whisper, with the scarlet circle on his forehead 
swelling in his triumphant joy. 

Mr. Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nod- 
ding assent, Captain Cuttle rose and squeezed him 



MATURITY 121 

by the hand, assuring him warmly, that they were 
on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) 
he had laid his course that way all along. "He 
know'd her first," said the Captain, with all the 
secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded, "in 
an uncommon manner — you remember his finding 
her in the street when she was a'most a babby — he 
has liked her ever since, and she him, as much as 
two such youngsters can. We've always said, Sol 
Gills and me, that they was cut out for each other." 

A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death's- 
head, could not have shown the Captain more teeth 
at one time, than Mr. Carker showed him at this 
period of their interview. 

"There's a general in-draught that way," ob- 
served the happy Captain. "Wind and water sets 
in that direction, you see. Look at his being pres- 
ent t'other day!" 

"Most favourable to his hopes," said Mr. Carker. 

"Look at his being towed along in the wake of 
that day!" pursued the Captain. "Why, what can 
cut him adrift now?" 

"Nothing," replied Mr. Carker. 

"You're right again," returned the Captain, giv- 
ing his hand another squeeze. "Nothing it is. So ! 
steady! There's a son gone: pretty little creetur. 
An't there?" 

"Yes, there's a son gone," said the acquiescent 
Carker. 



122 DICKENS 

"Pass the word, and there's another ready for 
you," quoth the Captain. "Nevy of a scientific 
uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal'r! Wal'r, as is 
already in your business! And" — said the Cap- 
tain, rising gradually to a quotation he was prepar- 
ing for a final burst, "who — comes from Sol Gills's 
daily, to your business, and your buzzums." 

The Captain's complacency as he gently jogged 
Mr. Carker with his elbow, on concluding each of 
the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed 
by nothing but the exultation with which he fell 
back and eyed him when he had finished this bril- 
liant display of eloquence and sagacity; his great 
blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a 
masterpiece, and his nose in a state of violent in- 
flammation from the same cause. 

"Am I right?" said the Captain. 

"Captain Cuttle," said Mr. Carker, bending down 
at the knees, for a moment, in an odd manner, as 
if he were falling together to hug the whole of 
himself at once, "your views in reference to Walter 
Gay are thoroughly and accurately right. I under- 
stand that we speak together in confidence." 

"Honour!" interposed the Captain. "Not a 
word." 

"To him or any one ?" pursued the Manager. 

Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head. 

"But merely for your own satisfaction and guid- 



MATURITY 123 

ance — and guidance, of course," repeated Mr. Car- 
ker, "with a view to your future proceedings." 

"Thank'ee kindly, I am sure," said the Captain, 
listening with great attention. 

"I have no hesitation in saying, that's the fact. 
You have hit the probabilities exactly." 

"And with regard to your head Governor," said 
the Captain, "why an interview had better come 
about nat'ral between us. There's time enough." 

Mr. Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, 
repeated, "Time enough." Not articulating the 
words, but bowing his head affably, and forming 
them with his tongue and lips. 

"And as I know — it's what I always said — that 
Wal'r's in a way to make his fortune," said the 
Captain. 

"To make his fortune," Mr. Carker repeated, in 
the same dumb manner. 

"And as Wal'r's going on this little voyage is, 
as I may say, in his day's work, and a part of his 
general expectations here," said the Captain. 

"Of his general expectations here," assented Mr. 
Carker, dumbly as before. 

"Why, so long as I know that," pursued the Cap- 
tain, "there's no hurry, and my mind's at ease." 

Mr. Carker still blandly assenting in the same 
voiceless manner, Captain Cuttle was strongly con- 
firmed in his opinion that he was one of the most 



124 DICKENS 

agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr. 
Dombey might improve himself on such a model. 
With great heartiness, therefore, the Captain once 
again extended his enormous hand (not unlike an 
old block in colour), and gave him a grip that left 
upon his smoother flesh a proof impression of the 
chinks and crevices with which the Captain's palm 
was liberally tattooed. 

"Farewell !" said the Captain. "I an't a man of 
many words, but I take it very kind of you to be 
so friendly, and above-board. You'll excuse me if 
I've been at all intruding, will you?" said the Cap- 
tain. 

"Not at all," returned the other. 

"Thank'ee. My berth an't very roomy," said 
the Captain, turning back again, "but it's tolerably 
snug; and if you was to find yourself near Brig 
Place, number nine, at any time — will you make a 
note of it? — and would come upstairs, without 
minding what was said by the person at the door, 
I should be proud to see you." 

With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 
"Good day!" and walked out and shut the door; 
leaving Mr. Carker still reclining against the chim- 
neypiece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; 
in whose false mouth, stretched but not laughing; 
in whose spotless cravat and very whiskers; even 
in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his 
white linen and his smooth face; there was some- 
thing desperately cat-like. 



MATURITY 125 

The unconscious Captain walked out in a state 
of self-glorification that imparted quite a new cut 
to the broad blue suit. "Stand by, Ned !" said the 
Captain to himself. "You've done a little business 
for the youngsters to-day, my lad I" 

The figure of Carker in this story illustrates a 
tendency in Dickens : his knaves in general are less 
realized and more of conventional shaping than his 
humorous characters. 

DAVID COPPERFIELD 

Confessedly his masterpiece, published when the 
author was thirty-eight, this story is the most auto- 
biographic of any fiction in the list, which may be 
set down as one element of the appeal which it has 
always made. It depicts the life history of Copper- 
field from childhood to successful young manhood 
as an author, and the early scenes of hardship are 
drawn directly from Dickens's own experience. It 
is crowded full with scenes and characters that are 
as familiar and as great favorites as any fiction 
that ever came from an English pen. 

From the wealth of portraiture, which involves 
Little Emily and Ham and Peggotty and Mrs. Gum- 
midge, Heep, Micawber and Aunt Betsy, Mr. Dick, 
Barkis and Tradles, we may first take a scene which 
typically presents the man who has many of the 
traits of Dickens's own father, on the side of humor, 



126 DICKENS 

even as in Little Dorrit, the graver side of his parent 
is shown in the Father of the Marshalsea. 

A Glimpse of the Mic cumbers at Canterbury 

It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, 
and he occupied a little room in it, partitioned off 
from the commercial room, and strongly flavored 
with tobacco-smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, 
because a warm, greasy smell appeared to come up 
through the chinks in the floor, and there was a 
flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was 
near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and 
jingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small 
sofa, underneath a picture of a racehorse, with her 
head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mus- 
tard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the 
room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber 
entered first saying, "My dear, allow me to intro- 
duce to you a pupil of Doctor Strong's." 

I noticed, by-the-bye, that although Mr. Micaw- 
ber was just as much confused as ever about my 
age and standing, he always remembered, as a gen- 
teel thing, that I was a pupil of Dr. Strong's. 

Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to 
see me. I was very very glad to see her too, and, 
after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat 
down on the small sofa near her. 

"My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "if you will men- 



MATURITY 127 

tion to Copperfield what our present position is, 
which I have no doubt he will like to know, I will 
go and look at the paper the while, and see whether 
anything turns up among the advertisements." 

"I thought you were at Plymouth, ma'am," I 
said to Mrs. Micawber, as he went out. 

"My dear Master Copperfield," she replied, "we 
went to Plymouth." 

"To be on the spot," I hinted. 

"Just so," said Mrs. Micawber — "to be on the 
spot. But the truth is, talent is not wanted in the 
Custom House. The local influence of my family 
was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in 
that department for a man of Mr. Micawber' s abil- 
ities. They would rather not have a man of Mr. 
Micawber's abilities. He would only show the 
deficiency of the others. Apart from which," said 
Mrs. Micawber, "I will not disguise from you, my 
dear Master Copperfield, that when that branch of 
my family which settled in Plymouth became aware 
that Mr. Micawber was accompanied by myself, 
and by little Wilkens and his sister, and by the 
twins, they did not receive him with that ardour 
which he might have expected, being so newly re- 
leased from captivity. In fact," said Mrs. Micaw- 
ber, lowering her voice — "this is between ourselves 
— our reception was cool." 

"Dear me !" I said. 

"Yes," said Mrs. Micawber. "It is truly painful 



128 DICKENS 

to contemplate mankind in such an aspect, Master 
Copperfield, but our reception was decidedly cool. 
There is no doubt about it. In fact, that branch 
of my family which is settled in Plymouth became 
quite personal to Mr. Micawber, before we had been 
there a week." 

I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed 
of themselves. 

"Still, so it was," continued Mrs. Micawber. 
"Under such circumstances, what could a man of 
Mr. Micawber s spirit do? But one obvious course 
was left — to borrow of that branch of my family 
the money to return to London, and to return at 
any sacrifice." 

"Then you all came back again, ma'am?" I said. 

"We all came back again," replied Mrs. Micaw- 
ber. "Since then, I have consulted other branches 
of my family on the course which it is most expedi- 
ent for Mr. Micawber to take — for I maintain that 
he must take some course, Master Copperfield," 
said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively. "It is clear 
that a family of six, not including a domestic, can- 
not live upon air." 

"Certainly, ma'am," said I. 

"The opinion of those other branches of my 
family," pursued Mrs. Micawber, "is, that Mr. Mi- 
cawber should immediately turn his attention to 
coals." 

"To what, ma'am?" 



MATURITY 129 

"To coals," said Mrs. Micawber — "to the coal 
trade. Mr. Micawber was induced to think, on in- 
quiry, that there might be an opening for a man 
of his talent in the Medway coal trade. Then, as 
Mr. Micawber very properly said, the first step to 
be taken clearly was, to come and see the Medway. 
Which we came and saw. I say 'we,' Master Cop- 
perfield ; for I never will," said Mrs. Micawber with 
emotion — "I never will desert Mr. Micawber." 

I murmured my admiration and approbation. 

"We came," repeated Mrs. Micawber, "and saw 
the Medway. My opinion of the coal trade on that 
river is, that it may require talent, but that it cer- 
tainly requires capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has ; 
capital, Mr. Micawber has not. We saw, I think, 
the greater part of the Medway; and that is my 
individual conclusion. Being so near here, Mr. Mi- 
cawber was of opinion that it would be rash not to 
come on and see the cathedral — firstly, on account 
of its being so well worth seeing, and our never 
having seen it; and secondly, on account of the great 
probability of something turning up in a cathedral 
town. We have been here," said Mrs. Micawber, 
"three days. Nothing has, as yet, turned up; and 
it may not surprise you, my dear Master Copper- 
field, so much as it would a stranger, to know that 
we are at present waiting for a remittance from 
London to discharge our pecuniary obligations at 
this hotel. Until the arrival of that remittance," 



130 DICKENS 

said Mrs. Micawber with much feeling, "I am cut 
off from my home (I allude to lodgings in Penton- 
ville), from my boy and girl, and from my twins." 

I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Mi- 
cawber in this anxious extremity, and said as much 
to Mr. Micawber, who now returned — adding that 
I only wished I had money enough to lend them 
the amount they needed. Mr. Micawber's answer 
expressed the disturbance of his mind. He said, 
shaking hands with me, "Copperfield, you are a true 
friend; but when the worst comes to the worst, no 
man is without a friend who is possessed of shav- 
ing materials." At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micaw- 
ber threw her arms round Mr. Micawber's neck, and 
entreated him to be calm. He wept; but so far 
recovered, almost immediately, as to ring the bell 
for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding 
and a plate of shrimps for breakfast in the morning. 

When I took my leave of them, they both pressed 
me so much to come and dine before they went 
away that I could not refuse. But as I knew I 
could not come next day, when I should have a good 
deal to prepare in the evening, Mr. Micawber ar- 
ranged that he would call at Doctor Strong's in 
the course of the morning (having a presentiment 
that the remittance would arrive by that post), and 
propose the day after, if it would suit me better. 
Accordingly, I was called out of school next fore- 
noon, and found Mr. Micawber in the parlour, who 



MATURITY 131 

had called to say that the dinner would take place 
as proposed. When I asked him if the remittance 
had come, he pressed my hand and departed. 

As I was looking out of the window that same 
evening, it surprised me, and made me uneasy, to 
see Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep walk past arm 
in arm — Uriah humbly sensible of the honour that 
was done him, and Mr. Micawber taking a bland 
delight in extending his patronage to Uriah. But 
I was still more surprised when I went to the little 
hotel next day at the appointed dinner-hour, which 
was four o'clock, to find, from what Mr. Micawber 
said, that he had gone home with Uriah, and had 
drunk brandy-and-water at Mrs. Heep's. 

"And I'll tell you what, my dear Copperfield," 
said Mr. Micawber, "your friend Heep is a young 
fellow who might be attorney-general. If I had 
known that young man at the period when my dif- 
ficulties came to a crisis, all I can say is, that I be- 
lieve my creditors would have been a great deal 
better managed than they were." 

I hardly understood how this could have been, 
seeing that Mr. Micawber had paid them nothing at 
all as it was; but I did not like to ask. Neither 
did I like to say that I hoped he had not been too 
communicative to Uriah, or to inquire if they had 
talked much about me. I was afraid of hurting 
Mr. Micawber' s feelings, or at all events, Mrs. Mi- 
cawber's, she being very sensitive; but I was un- 



132 DICKENS 

comfortable about it, too, and often thought about 
it afterwards. 

We had a beautiful little dinner — quite an ele- 
gant dish of fish, the kidney-end of a loin of veal 
roasted, fried sausage-meat, a partridge, and a pud- 
ding. There was wine, and there was strong ale; 
and after dinner, Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl 
of hot punch with her own hands. 

Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I 
never saw him such good company. He made his 
face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if 
it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully 
sentimental about the town, and proposed success 
to it; observing that Mrs. Micawber and himself 
had been made extremely snug and comfortable 
there, and that he never should forget the agreeable 
hours they had passed in Canterbury. He proposed 
me afterwards; and he, and Mrs. Micawber, and 
I, took a review of our past acquaintance, in the 
course of which we sold the property all over again. 
Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber — or, at least, said 
modestly, "If you'll allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I 
shall now have the pleasure of drinking your health, 
ma'am." On which Mr. Micawber delivered an 
eulogium on Mrs. Micawber's character, and said 
she had ever been his guide, philosopher, and friend ; 
and that he would recommend me, when I came to 
a marry ing-time of life, to marry such another 
woman, if such another woman could be found. 



MATURITY 133 

As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became 
still more friendly and convivial. Mrs. Micawber's 
spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang "Auld Lang 
Syne." When we came to "Here's my trusty here," 
we all joined hands round the table; and when we 
declared we would "tak' a right gude willie- 
waught," and hadn't the least idea what it meant, 
we were really affected. 

In a word, I never saw anybody so thoroughly 
jovial as Mr. Micawber was, down to the very last 
moment of the evening, when I took a hearty fare- 
well of himself and his amiable wife. Consequently 
I was not prepared, at seven o'clock next morning, 
to receive the following communication, dated half- 
past nine in the evening, a quarter of an hour after 
I had left him : 

"My Dear Young Friend : 

"The die is cast — all is over. Hiding the ravages 
of care with a sickly mask of mirth, I have not 
informed you, this evening, that there is no hope 
of the remittance! Under these circumstances, 
alike humiliating to contemplate, and humiliating 
to relate, I have discharged the pecuniary liability 
contracted at this establishment by giving a note 
of hand, made payable fourteen days after date, 
at my residence, Pentonville, London. When it 
becomes due, it will not be taken up. The result is 
destruction. The bolt is impending, and the tree 
must fall. 



134 DICKENS 

"Let the wretched man who now addresses you, 
my dear Copperfield, be a beacon to you through 
life. He writes with that intention and in that hope. 
If he could think himself of so much use, one gleam 
of day might, by possibility, penetrate into the 
cheerless dungeon of his remaining existence — 
though his longevity is, at present (to say the least 
of it), extremely problematical. 

"This is the last communication, my dear Cop- 
perfield, you will ever receive 
"From 
"The 

"Beggared Outcast, 

"WlLKINS MlCAWBER." 

I was so shocked by the contents of this heart- 
rending letter that I ran off directly towards the 
little hotel, with the intention of taking it on my 
way to Doctor Strong's, and trying to soothe Mr. 
Micawber with a word of comfort. But, half-way 
there, I met the London coach, with Mr. and Mrs. 
Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very pic- 
ture of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micaw- 
ber's conversation, eating walnuts out of a paper 
bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. 
As they did not see me, I thought it best, all things 
considered, not to see them. So, with a great weight 
taken off my mind, I turned into a by-street that 
was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the 



MATURITY 135 

whole, relieved that they were gone — though I still 
liked them very much, nevertheless. 

Little David Seeks Aunt Betsy 

The little David, his mother being dead, has in 
desperation run away from his domicile with the 
harsh Murdstones, and walked all the way to Dover, 
where resides his Aunt Betsy Trotwood — the one 
relative to whom he can appeal. 

When I came, at last, upon the bare, wide downs 
near Dover, it relieved the solitary aspect of the 
scene with hope; and not until I reached that first 
great aim of my journey, and actually set foot in 
the town itself, on the sixth day of my flight, did 
it desert me. But then, strange to say, when I 
stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sun- 
burnt, half -clothed figure, in the place so long de- 
sired, it seemed to vanish like a dream, and to 
leave me helpless and dispirited. 

I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen 
first, and received various answers. One said she 
lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed 
her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was 
made fast to the great buoy outside the harbour, and 
could only be visited at half-tide; a third, that she 
was locked up in Maidstone Jail for child-stealing; 
a fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom, in 
the last high wind, and make direct for Calais. The 



136 DICKENS 

fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next, were 
equally jocose and equally disrespectful : and the 
shopkeepers, not liking my appearance, generally 
replied, without hearing what I had to say, that they 
had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and 
destitute than I had done at any period of my run- 
ning away. My money was all gone, I had nothing 
left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and worn 
out; and seemed as distant from my end as if I 
had remained in London. 

The morning had worn away in these inquiries, 
and I was sitting on the step of an empty shop at 
a street corner, near the market-place, deliberating 
upon wandering towards those other places which 
had been mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by 
with his carriage, dropped a horsecloth. Something 
good-natured in the man's face, as I handed it up, 
encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where 
Miss Trotwood lived ; though I had asked the ques- 
tion so often, that it almost died upon my lips. 

"Trotwood," said he. "Let me see. I know the 
name, too. Old lady?" 

"Yes," I said, "rather." 

"Pretty stiff in the back?" said he, making him- 
self upright. 

"Yes," I said. "I should think it very likely." 

"Carries a bag?" said he — "bag with a good deal 
of room in it — is grufBsh, and comes down upon 
you, sharp?" 



MATURITY 137 

My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the 
undoubted accuracy of this description. 

"Why then, I tell you what," said he. "If you 
go up there," pointing with his whip towards the 
heights, "and keep right on till you come to some 
houses facing the sea, I think you'll hear of her. 
My opinion is, she won't stand anything, so here's 
a penny for you." 

I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf 
with it. Despatching this refreshment by the way, 
I went in the direction my friend had indicated, and 
walked on a good distance without coming to the 
houses he had mentioned. At length I saw some 
before me; and approaching them, went into a little 
shop (it was what we used to call a general shop, 
at home), and inquired if they could have the good- 
ness to tell me where Miss Trotwood lived. I ad- 
dressed myself to a man behind the counter, who 
was weighing some rice for a young woman; but 
the latter, taking the inquiry to herself, turned 
round quickly. 

"My mistress?" she said. "What do you want 
with her, boy?" 

"I want," I replied, "to speak to her, if you 
please." 

"To beg of her, you mean," retorted the damsel. 

"No," I said, "indeed." But suddenly remember- 
ing that in truth I came for no other purpose, I 
held my peace in confusion, and felt my face burn. 



138 DICKENS 

My aunt's handmaid, as I supposed she was from 
what she had said, put her rice in a little basket 
and walked out of the shop; telling me that I could 
follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trot- 
wood lived. I needed no second permission ; though 
I was by this time in such a state of consternation 
and agitation, that my legs shook under me. I fol- 
lowed the young woman, and we soon came to a 
very neat little cottage with cheerful bow-windows: 
in front of it, a small square gravelled court or 
garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smell- 
ing deliciously. 

"This is Miss Trotwood's," said the young 
woman. "Now you know; and that's all I have 
got to say." With which words she hurried into 
the house, as if to shake off the responsibility of 
my appearance; and left me standing at the garden- 
gate, looking disconsolately over the top of it to- 
wards the parlour-window, where a muslin curtain 
partly undrawn in the middle, a large round green 
screen or fan fastened on to the window-sill, a small 
table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my 
aunt might be at that moment seated in awful state. 

My shoes were by this time in a woful condition. 
The soles had shed themselves bit by bit, and the 
upper leathers had broken and burst until the very 
shape and form of shoes had departed from them. 
My hat (which had served me for a nightcap, too) 
was so crushed and bent, that no old battered han- 



MATURITY 139 

dleless saucepan on a dunghill need have been 
ashamed to vie with it. My shirt and trousers, 
stained with heat, dew, grass, and the Kentish soil 
on which I had slept — and torn besides — might have 
frightened the birds from my aunt's garden, as I 
stood at the gate. My hair had known no comb 
or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and 
hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and 
sun, were burnt to a berry-brown. From head to 
foot, I was powdered almost as white with chalk 
and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In 
this plight, and with a strong consciousness of it, I 
waited to introduce myself to, and make my first 
impression on, my formidable aunt. 

The unbroken stillness of the parlour-window 
leading me to infer, after a while, that she was not 
there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above it, 
where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, 
with a gray head, who shut up one eye in a gro- 
tesque manner, nodded his head at me several times, 
shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away. 

I had been discomposed enough before; but I was 
so much the more discomposed by this unexpected 
behavior, that I was on the point of slinking off, to 
think how I had best proceed, when there came out 
of the house a lady with a handkerchief tied over 
her cap, and a pair of gardening gloves on her 
hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a tollman's 
apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her im- 



140 DICKENS 

mediately to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking 
out of the house exactly as my poor mother had 
so often described her stalking up our garden at 
Blunderstone Rookery. 

"Go away !" said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, 
and making a distant chop in the air with her knife. 
"Go along! No boys here!" 

I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she 
marched to a corner of her garden, and stooped 
to dig up some little root there. Then, without a 
scrap of courage, but with a great deal of despera- 
tion, I went softly in and stood beside her, touching 
her with my finger. 

"If you please, ma'am," I began. 

She started and looked up. 

"If you please, aunt." 

"EH?" exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of 
amazement I have never heard approached. 

"If you please, aunt, I am your nephew." 

"Oh, Lord!" said my aunt. And she sat flat 
down in the garden-path. 

"I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in 
Suffolk — where you came, on the night when I was 
born, and saw my dear mamma. I have been very 
unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and 
taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put 
to work not fit for me. It made me run away to 
you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have 
walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed 



MATURITY 141 

since I began the journey." Here my self-support 
gave way all at once; and with a movement of my 
hands, intended to show her my ragged state, and 
call it to witness that I had suffered something, I 
broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose had 
been pent up within me all the week. 

My aunt, with every sort of expression but won- 
der discharged from her countenance, sat on the 
gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry; when 
she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took 
me into the parlour. Her first proceeding there was 
to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and 
pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. 
I think they must have been taken out at random, 
for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, 
and salad dressing. When she had administered 
these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and 
unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, 
with a shawl under my head, and the handkerchief 
from her own head under my feet, lest I should 
sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down be- 
hind the green fan or screen I have already men- 
tioned, so that I could not see her face, ejaculated 
at intervals, "Mercy on us !" letting those exclama- 
tions off like minute guns. 

After a time she rang the bell. "Janet," said 
my aunt, when her servant came in. "Go upstairs, 
give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish 
to speak to him." 



142 DICKENS 

Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying 
stiffly on the sofa (I was afraid to move lest it 
should be displeasing to my aunt), but went on her 
errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, 
walked up and down the room, until the gentleman 
who had squinted at me from the upper window 
came in laughing. 

"Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "don't be a fool, be- 
cause nobody can be more discreet than you can, 
when you choose. We all know that. So don't 
be a fool, whatever you are." 

The gentleman was serious immediately, and 
looked at me, I thought, as if he would entreat me 
to say nothing about the window. 

"Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "you have heard me 
mention David Copperfield? Now don't pretend 
not to have a memory, because you and I know 
better." 

"David Copperfield?" said Mr. Dick, who did 
not appear to me to remember much about it. "Da- 
vid Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure, David, cer- 
tainly." 

"Well," said my aunt, "this is his boy — his son. 
He would be as like his father as it's possible to 
be, if he was not so like his mother, too." 

"His son?" said Mr. Dick. "David's son? In- 
deed !" 

"Yes," pursued my aunt, "and he has done a 
pretty piece of business. He has run away. Ah! 



MATURITY 143 

His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have run 
away." 

My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the 
character and behavior of the girl who never was 
born. 

"Oh! you think she wouldn't have run away?" 
said Mr. Dick. 

"Bless and save the man," exclaimed my aunt, 
sharply, "how he talks ! Don't I know she wouldn't? 
She would have lived with her god-mother, and 
we should have been devoted to one another. 
Where, in the name of wonder, should his sister, 
Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to?" 

"Nowhere," said Mr. Dick. 

"Well then," returned my aunt, softened by the 
reply, "how can you pretend to be wool-gathering, 
Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon's lancet? 
Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and 
the question I put to you is, what shall I do with 
him?" 

"What shall you do with him?" said Mr. Dick, 
feebly, scratching his head. "Oh! do with him?" 

"Yes," said my aunt, with a grave look, and her 
forefinger held up. "Come! I want some very 
sound advice." 

"Why, if I was you," said Mr. Dick, considering, 
and looking vacantly at me, "I should — " The 
contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a 
sudden idea, and he added, briskly, "I should wash 
him!" 



144 DICKENS 

" Janet,' ' said my aunt, turning round with a quiet 
triumph, which I did not then understand, "Mr. 
Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath !" 

The Tempest at Yarmouth 

As a young man, David visits the quaint fishing 
port of Yarmouth, where as a boy he has played 
with Little Emily in the curious house made out 
of a boat. Steer forth, David's false school friend, 
has run away with Emily and ruined her; Dan'l 
Peggotty has pursued the pair in order to rescue 
his darling; while the faithful fisherman, Ham, has 
remained at home sturdily doing his daily task, al- 
though heartbroken because Emily, whom he loved, 
is lost in a double sense. 

I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, 
so awful, so bound by an infinite variety of ties to 
all that has preceded it, in these pages, that, from 
the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it grow- 
ing larger and larger as I advanced, like a great 
tower in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow 
even on the incidents of my childish days. 

For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. 
I have started up so vividly impressed by it, that 
its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet room, 
in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though 
at lengthened and uncertain intervals, to this hour. 



MATURITY 145 

I have an association between it and a stormy wind, 
or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong 
as any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly 
as I behold what happened, I will try to write it 
down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for it 
happens again before me. 

The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of 
the emigrant-ship, my good old nurse (almost 
broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came 
up to London. I was constantly with her, and her 
brother, and the Micawbers (they being very much 
together) ; but Emily I never saw. 

One evening when the time was close at hand, I 
was alone with Peggotty and her brother. Our 
conversation turned on Ham. She described to us 
how tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how 
manfully and quietly he had borne himself. Most 
of all, of late, when she believed he was most tried. 
It was a subject of which the affectionate creature 
never tired; and our interest in hearing the many 
examples which she, who was so much with him, 
had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them. 

My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two 
cottages at Highgate ; I intending to go abroad, and 
she to return to her house at Dover. We had a 
temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked 
home to it, after this evening's conversation, re- 
flecting on what had passed between Ham and my- 
self when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in 



146 DICKENS 

the original purpose I had formed, of leaving a 
letter for Emily when I should take leave of her 
uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be 
better to write to her now. She might desire, I 
thought, after receiving my communication, to send 
some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I 
ought to give her the opportunity. 

I therefore sat down in my room, before going 
to bed, and wrote to her. I told her that I had 
seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her 
what I have already written in its place in these 
sheets. I faithfully repeated it. I had no need to 
enlarge upon it, if I had had the right. Its deep 
fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by 
me or any man. I left it out, to be sent round in 
the morning; with a line to Mr. Peggotty, request- 
ing him to give it to her; and went to bed at day- 
break. 

I was weaker than I knew then ; and, not falling 
asleep until the sun was up, lay late, and unre- 
freshed, next day. I was roused by the silent pres- 
ence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my 
sleep, as I suppose we all do feel such things. 

"Trot, my dear," she said, when I opened my 
eyes, "I couldn't make up my mind to disturb you. 
Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come up?" 

I replied yes, and he soon appeared. 

"Mas'r Davy," he said, when we had shaken 
hands, "I giv Em'ly your letter, sir, and she writ 



MATURITY 147 

this heer; and begged of me fur to ask you to read 
it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take 
charge on't." 

"Have you read it?" said I. 

He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read 
as follows : 

"I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, 
to thank you for your good and blessed kindness 
to me! 

"I have put the words close to my heart. I shall 
keep them till I die. They are sharp thorns, but they 
are such comfort. I have prayed over them, oh, I 
have prayed so much. When I find what you are, 
and what uncle is, I think what God must be, and 
can cry to Him. 

"Good by for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, 
good by for ever in this world. In another world, 
if I am forgiven, I may wake a child, and come to 
you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, ever- 
more.' , 

This, blotted with tears, was the letter. 

"May I tell her as you doen't see no hurt in't, and 
as you'll be so kind as take charge on't, Mas'r 
Davy ?" said Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it. 

"Unquestionably," said I — "but I am thinking — " 

"Yes, Mas'r Davy?" 

"I am thinking," said I, "that I'll go down again 
to Yarmouth. There's time, and to spare, for me 
to go and come back before the ship sails. My 



148 DICKENS 

mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude ; 
to put this letter of her writing in his hand at this 
time, and to enable you to tell her, in the moment 
of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to 
both of them. I solemnly accepted his commission, 
dear good fellow, and cannot discharge it too com- 
pletely. The journey is nothing to me. I am rest- 
less, and shall be better in motion. I'll go down 
to-night." 

Though he anxiously endeavored to dissuade me, 
I saw that he was of my mind; and this, if I had 
required to be confirmed in my intention, would 
have had the effect. He went round to the coach- 
office, at my request, and took the box-seat for me 
on the mail. In the evening I started, by that con- 
veyance, down the road I had traversed under so 
many vicissitudes. 

"Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, 
in the first stage out of London, "a very remarkable 
sky? I don't remember to have seen one like it." 

"Nor I— not equal to it," he replied. "That's 
wind, sir. There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, 
before long." 

It was a murky confusion — here and there blotted 
with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp 
fuel — of flying clouds tossed up into most remark- 
able heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds 
than there were depths below them to the bottom of 
the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the 



MATURITY 149 

mild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a 
dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had 
lost her way and were frightened. There had been 
a wind all day, and it was rising then, with an ex- 
traordinary great sound. In another hour it had 
much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and 
it blew hard. 

But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in 
and densely overspreading the whole sky, then very 
dark, it came on to blow, harder and harder. It 
still increased, until our horses could scarcely face 
the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the 
night (it was then late in September, when the 
nights were not short), the leaders turned about, 
or came to a dead stop; and we were often in se- 
rious apprehension that the coach would be blown 
over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this 
storm like showers of steel; and at those times, 
when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls 
to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossi- 
bility of continuing the struggle. 

When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. 
I had been to Yarmouth when the seamen said it 
blew great guns, but I had never known the like 
of this, or anything approaching to it. We came 
to Ipswich — very late, having had to fight every 
inch of ground since we were ten miles out of 
London ; and found a cluster of people in the mar- 
ket-place, who had risen from their beds in the 



150 DICKENS 

night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of these, 
congregating about the inn-yard while we changed 
horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been 
ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a 
by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had 
to tell of country people, coming in from neighbor- 
ing villages, who had seen great trees lying torn 
out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered about 
the roads and fields. Still there was no abatement 
in the storm, but it blew harder. 

As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, 
from which this mighty wind was blowing dead 
on shore, its force became more and more terrific. 
Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our 
lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water 
was out, over miles and miles of the flat country 
adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle 
lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers 
setting heavily toward us. When we came within 
sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught 
at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like 
glimpses of another shore with towers and build- 
ings. When at last we got into the town, the peo- 
ple came out to their doors, all aslant, and with 
streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that 
had come through such a night. 

I put up at the old inn, and went down to look 
at the sea; staggering along the street, which was 
strewn with sand and sea-weed, and with flying 



MATURITY 151 

blotches of sea- foam; afraid of falling slates and 
tiles ; and holding by people I met at angry corners. 
Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boat- 
men, but half the people of the town, lurking behind 
buildings ; some, now and then braving the fury of 
the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out 
of their course in trying to get zigzag back. 

Joining these groups, I found bewailing women 
whose husbands were away in herring or oyster 
boats, which there was too much reason to think 
might have foundered before they could run in any- 
where for safety. Grizzled old sailors were among 
the people, shaking their heads as they looked from 
water to sky, and muttering to one another; ship- 
owners, excited and uneasy; children huddling to- 
gether, and peering into older faces; even stout 
mariners disturbed and anxious, levelling their 
glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, 
as if they were surveying an enemy. 

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find 
sufficient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the 
blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the 
awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery 
walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled 
into surf, they looked as if the last would engulf 
the town. As the receding wave swept back with 
a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves 
in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine 
the earth. When some white-headed billows thun- 



152 DICKENS 

dered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before 
they reached the land, every fragment of the late 
whole seemed possessed by the full might of its 
wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition 
of another monster. Undulating hills were changed 
to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary 
storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) 
were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered 
and shook the beach with a booming sound; every 
shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to 
change its shape and place, and beat another shape 
and place away ; the ideal shore on the horizon, with 
its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds 
flew fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and 
upheaving of all nature. 

Not finding Ham among the people whom this 
memorable wind — for it is still remembered down 
there as the greatest ever known to blow upon that 
coast — had brought together, I made my way to 
his house. It was shut; and as no one answered 
to my knocking, I went by back ways and by-lanes, 
to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, 
that he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sud- 
den exigency of ship- repairing in which his skill was 
required; but that he would be back to-morrow 
morning in good time. 

I went back to the inn; and when I had washed 
and dressed, and tried to sleep, but in vain, it was 
five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not sat five 



MATURITY 153 

minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter 
coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me 
that two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a 
few miles away ; and that some other ships had been 
seen laboring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great 
distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, and 
on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night 
like the last ! 

I was very much depressed in spirits; very soli- 
tary; and felt an uneasiness in Ham's not being 
there, disproportionate to the occasion. I was se- 
riously affected, without knowing how much, by 
late events ; and my long exposure to the fierce wind 
had confused me. There was that jumble in my 
thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear 
arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I had 
gone out into the town, I should not have been sur- 
prised, I think, to encounter some one who I knew 
must be then in London. So to speak, there was 
in these respects a curious inattention in my mind. 
Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances 
the place naturally awakened; and they were par- 
ticularly distinct and vivid. 

In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about 
the ships immediately connected itself, without any 
effort of my volition, with my uneasiness about 
Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension 
of his returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being 
lost. This grew so strong with me, that I resolved 



154 DICKENS 

to go back to the yard before I took my dinner, 
and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempt- 
ing to return by sea at all likely? If he gave me 
the least reason to think so, I would go over to 
Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me. 

I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to 
the yard. I was none too soon ; for the boat-builder, 
with a lantern in his hand, was locking the yard- 
gate. He quite laughed, when I asked him the 
question, and said there was no fear; no man in 
his senses, or out of them, would put off in such 
a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had 
been born to sea-faring. 

So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really 
felt ashamed of doing what I was nevertheless im- 
pelled to do, I went back to the inn. If such a wind 
could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, 
the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling 
in the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very 
house that sheltered me, and the prodigious tumult 
of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. 
But there was now a great darkness besides; and 
that invested the storm with new terrors, real and 
fanciful. 

I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not 
continue steadfast to anything. Something within 
me, faintly answering to the storm without, tossed 
up the depths of my memory, and made a tumult 
in them. Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, 



MATURITY 155 

wild running with the thundering sea, — the storm 
and my uneasiness regarding Ham, were always in 
the foreground. 

My dinner went away almost untasted, and I 
tried to refresh myself with a glass or two of wine. 
In vain. I fell into a dull slumber before the fire, 
without losing my consciousness, either of the up- 
roar out of doors, or of the place in which I was. 
Both became overshadowed by a new and indefinable 
horror ; and when I awoke — or rather when I shook 
off the lethargy that bound me in my chair — my 
whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelli- 
gible fear. 

I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, 
listened to the awful noises; looked at faces, scenes, 
and figures in the fire. At length, the steady tick- 
ing of the undisturbed clock on the wall, tormented 
me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed. 

It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told 
that some of the inn-servants had agreed together 
to sit up until morning. I went to bed, exceedingly 
weary and heavy; but on my lying down, all such 
sensations vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad 
awake, with every sense refined. 

For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and 
water; imagining, now, that I heard shrieks out at 
sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firing of signal 
guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I 
got up, several times, and looked out ; but could see 



156 DICKENS 

nothing, except the reflection in the window-panes 
of the faint candle I had left burning, and of my 
own haggard face looking in at me from the black 
void. 

At length, my restlessness attained to such a 
pitch, that I hurried on my clothes, and went down- 
stairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimly saw 
bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, 
the watchers were clustered together, in various at- 
titudes, about a table, purposely moved away from 
the great chimney, and brought near the door. A 
pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her 
apron, and her eyes upon the door, screamed when 
I appeared, supposing me to be a spirit; but the oth- 
ers had more presence of mind, and were glad of 
an addition to their company. One man, referring 
to the topic they had been discussing, asked me 
whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews 
who had gone down, were out in the storm? 

I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, 
I opened the yard-gate, and looked into the empty 
street. The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes of 
foam, were driving by, and I was obliged to call 
for assistance before I could shut the gate again, 
and make it fast against the wind. 

There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, 
when I at length returned to it; but I was tired 
now, and, getting into bed again, fell — off a tower 
and down a precipice — into the depths of sleep. I 



MATURITY 157 

have an impression that, for a long time, though I 
dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of 
scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At 
length, I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was 
engaged with two dear friends, but who they were 
I don't know, at the siege of some town in a roar 
of cannonading. 

The thunder of the cannon was so loud and in- 
cessant, that I could not hear something I much 
desired to hear, until I made a great exertion and 
awoke. It was broad day — eight or nine o'clock; 
the storm raging, in lieu of the batteries; and some 
one knocking and calling at my door. 

"What is the matter?" I cried. 

"A wreck! Close by!" 

I sprung out of bed, and asked what wreck? 

"A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with 
fruit and wine. Make haste, sir, if you want to 
see her ! It's thought, down on the beach, she'll go 
to pieces every moment." 

The excited voice went clamouring along the stair- 
case; and I wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly 
as I could, and ran into the street. 

Numbers of people were there before me, all 
running in one direction, to the beach. I ran the 
same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came 
facing the wild sea. 

The wind might by this time have lulled a little, 
though not more sensibly than if the cannonading 



158 DICKENS 

I had dreamed of, had been diminished by the si- 
lencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But, 
the sea, having upon it the additional agitation of 
the whole night, was infinitely more terrific than 
when I had seen it last. Every appearance it had 
then presented, bore the expression of being swelled ; 
and the height to which the breakers rose, and, 
looking over one another, bore one another down, 
and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most ap- 
palling. 

In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind 
and waves, and in the crowd, and the unspeakable 
confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand 
against the weather, I was so confused that I looked 
out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the 
foaming heads of the great waves. A half -dressed 
boatman, standing next to me, pointed with his 
bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the 
same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, 
I saw it, close in upon us ! 

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet 
from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a 
maze of sail and rigging; and all that ruin, as the 
ship rolled and beat — which she did without a mo- 
ment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceiv- 
able — beat the side as if it would stave it in. Some 
efforts were even then being made, to cut this por- 
tion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was 
broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I 



MATURITY 159 

plainly descried her people at work with axes, espe- 
cially one active figure with long curling hair, con- 
spicuous among the rest. But, a great cry, which 
was audible even above the wind and water, rose 
from the shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping 
over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and 
carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps 
of such toys, into the boiling surge. 

The second mast was yet standing, with the rags 
of a rent sail, and a wild confusion of broken cord- 
age flapping to and fro. The ship had struck once, 
the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then 
lifted in and struck again. I understood him to 
add that she was parting amidships, and I could 
readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating were 
too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. 
As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity 
from the beach; four men arose with the wreck 
out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the re- 
maining mast ; uppermost, the active figure with the 
curling hair. 

There was a bell on board ; and as the ship rolled 
and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, 
now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as 
she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, 
now nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over 
and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its 
sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne 
towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and 



160 DICKENS 

again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony 
on shore increased. Men groaned, and clasped 
their hands; women shrieked, and turned away 
their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along 
the beach, crying for help where no help could be. 
I found myself one of these, frantically imploring 
a knot of sailors whom I knew, not to let those 
two creatures perish before our eyes. 

They were making out to me, in an agitated 
way — I don't know how, for the little I could hear 
I was scarcely composed enough to understand — 
that the life-boat had been bravely manned an hour 
ago, and could do nothing; and that as no man 
would be so desperate as to attempt to wade off 
with a rope, and establish a communication with 
the shore, there was nothing left to try; when I 
noticed that some new sensation moved the people 
on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come 
breaking through them to the front. 

I ran to him — as well as I know, to repeat my 
appeal for help. But, distracted though I was, by 
a sight so new to me and terrible, the determination 
in his face, and his look, out to sea — exactly the 
same look as I remembered in connection with the 
morning after Emily's flight — awoke me to a knowl- 
edge of his danger. I held him back with both 
arms ; and implored the men with whom I had been 
speaking, not to listen to him, not to do murder, 
not to let him stir from off that sand ! 



MATURITY 161 

Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the 
wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, 
beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in 
triumph round the active figure left alone upon the 
mast. 

Against such a sight, and against such determina- 
tion as that of the calmly desperate man who was 
already accustomed to lead half the people present, 
I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. 
"Mas'r Davy," he said, cheerily grasping me by 
both hands, "if my time is come, 'tis come. If 
'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless 
all! Mates, make me ready! I'm a going off!" 

I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some dis- 
tance, where the people around me made me stay; 
urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was bent 
on going, with help or without, and that I should 
endanger the precautions for his safety by troub- 
ling those with whom they rested. I don't know 
what I answered, or what they rejoined; but, I 
saw hurry on the beach, and men running with 
ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrat- 
ing into a circle of figures that hid him from me. 
Then I saw him standing alone, in seaman's frock 
and trowsers : a rope in his hand, or slung to his 
wrist; another round his body: and several of the 
best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, 
which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at 
his feet. 



162 DICKENS 

The wreck, even to my unpracticed eye, was 
breaking up. I saw that she was parting in the 
middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon 
the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. 
He had a singular red cap on, — not like a sailor's 
cap, but of a finer color; and as the few yielding 
planks between him and destruction rolled and 
bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he 
was seen by all of us to wave it. I saw him do 
it now, and thought I was going distracted, when 
his action brought an old remembrance to my mind 
of a once dear friend. 

Ham Avatched the sea, standing alone, with the 
silence of suspended breath behind him, and the 
storm before, until there was a great retiring wave, 
when, with a backward glance at those who held the 
rope which was made fast round his body, he dashed 
in after it, and in a moment was buffetting with 
the water ; rising with the hills, falling with the val- 
leys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to 
land. They hauled in hastily. 

He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from 
where I stood; but he took no thought of that. He 
seemed hurriedly to give some directions for leaving 
him more free — or so I judged from the motion of 
his arm — and was gone as before. 

And now he made for the wreck, rising with the 
hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the rugged 
foam, borne in towards the shore, borne on towards 



MATURITY 163 

the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance 
was nothing, but the power of the sea and wind 
made the strife deadly. At length he neared the 
wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his 
vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it, — when, 
a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on 
shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed to 
leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship 
was gone ! 

Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if 
a mere cask had been broken, in running to the 
spot where they were hauling in. Consternation 
was in every face. They drew him to my very feet 
— insensible — dead. He was carried to the nearest 
house ; and, no one preventing me now, I remained 
near him, busy, while every means of restoration 
were tried; but he had been beaten to death by the 
great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for 
ever. 

As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned 
and all was done, a fisherman, who had known me 
when Emily and I were children, and ever since, 
whispered my name at the door. 

"Sir," said he, with tears starting to his weather- 
beaten face, which, with his trembling lips, was 
ashy pale, "will you come over yonder?" 

The old remembrance that had been recalled to 
me, was in his look. I asked him, terror-stricken, 
leaning on the arm he held out to support me : 



164 DICKENS 

"Has a body come ashore?" 

He said, "Yes." 

"Do I know it?" I asked then. 

He answered nothing. 

But he led me to the shore. And on that part 
of it where she and I had looked for shells, two 
children — on that part of it where some lighter 
fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, 
had been scattered by the wind — among the ruins 
of the home he had wronged — I saw him lying with 
his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie 
at school. 

The selection affords a fine example of Dickens 
in his graver mood and possesses the mellow beauty 
of style which at his best he commanded. It has a 
reminiscent richness, together with the cumulative 
dramatic power which often make his climaxes im- 
pressive and effective. It explains his stage value. 

BLEAK HOUSE 

In this truly great piece of fiction, the author 
satirizes the proceedings of the Chancery Court, 
showing the chicanery and evasion which gather 
around the Chancery system of handling property. 
This serious satiric aim, however, does not prevent 
a somber melodramatic story from being crowded 
to overflowing with typical, delightful creatures of 
his imagination : Tulkinghorn and Guppy, Miss 



MATURITY 165 

Flite, poor little Jo, Krook and Smallweeds, Chad- 
band and Mrs. Jellyby, Mrs. Snagsby and Stiggins, 
a rich gallery indeed. It is a big canvas, and the 
characters stand out in high relief. Bleak House 
is dramatic in method, atmospheric to a degree in 
tone. It showed Dickens at forty, in his prodigal 
young prime. He has never more successfully con- 
veyed the sense of the romance of life and of human 
destiny. 

Jo Passes On 

Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan 
Woodcourt, newly arrived, stands by him, looking 
down upon his wasted form. After a while, he 
softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face 
towards him — just as he sat in the law-writer's 
room — and touches his chest and heart. The cart 
had very nearly given up, but labours on a little 
more. 

The trooper stands in the doorway, still and si- 
lent. Phil has stopped in a low clinking noise, with 
his little hammer in his hand. Mr. Woodcourt 
looks round with that grave professional interest 
and attention on his face, and, glancing significantly 
at the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out. 
When the little hammer is next used, there will be 
a speck of rust upon it. 

"Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be 
frightened." 



166 DICKENS 

"I thought," says Jo, who has started, and is 
looking round, "I thought I wos in Tom-all-Alone's 
agin. Ain't there nobody here but you, Mr. Wood- 
cot?" 

"Nobody." 

"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am 
I, sir?" 

"No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I'm wery 
thankful." 

After watching him closely for a little while, 
Allan puts his mouth very near his ear, and says 
to him in a low, distinct voice : 

"Jo! Did you ever know a prayer?" 

"Never knowd nothink, sir." 

"Not so much as one short prayer?" 

"No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he 
wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby's and I heerd 
him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to his- 
self, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't 
make out nothink on it. Different times, there wos 
other genlmen come down Tom-all-Alone's a-pray- 
in, but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed 
wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talkin to 
theirselves, or a-passin blame on the t'others, and 
not a-talkin to us. We never knowd nothink. I 
never knowd what it wos all about." 

It takes him a long time to say this; and few 
but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, 
or, hearing, understand him. After a short relapse 



MATURITY 167 

into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong 
effort to get out of bed. 

"Stay, Jo! What now?" 

"It's time for me to go to that there berryin 
ground, sir," he returns with a wild look. 

"Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, 

Jo?" 

"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, 
wery good to me indeed, he wos. It's time fur me 
to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and 
ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there 
and be berried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am 
as poor as you to-day, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell 
him that I am as poor as him now, and have come 
there to be laid along with him." 

"By-and-bye, Jo. By-and-bye." 

"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go 
myself. But will you promise to have me took 
there, sir, and laid along with him?" 

"I will, indeed." 

"Thank'ee, sir. Thank'ee, sir. They'll have to 
get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, 
for it's alius locked. And there's a step there, as 
I used fur to clean with my broom. — It's turned 
wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin?" 

"It is coming fast, Jo." 

Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the 
rugged road is very near its end. 

"Jo, my poor fellow !" 



168 DICKENS 

"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin 
— a-gropin — let me catch hold of your hand." 

"Jo, can you hear what I say?" 

"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, fur I knows 
it's good." 

"OUR FATHER." 

"Our father! — yes, that's wery good, sir." 

"WHICH ART IN HEAVEN." 

"Art in Heaven — is the light a-comin, sir?" 

"It is close at hand. HALLOWED BE THY 
NAME!" 

"Hallowed be— thy— " 

The light is come upon the dark benighted way. 
Dead! 

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gen- 
tlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Rev- 
erends of every order. Dead, men and women, 
born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. 
And dying thus around us every day. 

Mr. Guppy Proposes 

(The narrator here is Esther.) 

Well ! I was full of business, examining trades- 
men's books, adding up columns, paying money, 
filing receipts, and I dare say making a great bustle 
about it, when Mr. Guppy was announced and 
shown in. I had had some idea that the clerk who 



MATURITY 169 

was to be sent down, might be the young gentleman 
who had met me at the coach-office ; and I was glad 
to see him, because he was associated with my pres- 
ent happiness. 

I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly 
smart. He had an entirely new suit of glossy 
clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid gloves, a neck- 
erchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house 
flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on 
his little finger. Besides which, he quite scented 
the dining-room with bear's-grease and other per- 
fumery. He looked at me with an attention that 
quite confused me, when I begged him to take a 
seat until the servant should return, and as he sat 
there, crossing and uncrossing his legs in a corner, 
and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride, and 
hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at 
him, but I found him looking at me, in the same 
scrutinizing and curious way. 

When the request was brought to him that he 
would go upstairs to Mr. Boythorn's room, I men- 
tioned that he would find lunch prepared for him 
when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped 
he would partake. He said with some embarrass- 
ment, holding the handle of the door, "Shall I have 
the honour of finding you here, miss?" I replied 
yes, I should be there ; and he went out with a bow 
and another look. 

I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was 



170 DICKENS 

evidently much embarrassed ; and I fancied that the 
best thing I could do, would be to wait until I saw 
that he had everything he wanted, and then to 
leave him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, 
but it remained for some time on the table. The 
interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one — and 
a stormy one too, I should think; for although his 
room was at some distance, I heard his loud voice 
every now and then like a high wind, and evidently 
blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation. 

At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something 
the worse for the conference. "My eye, miss," he 
said in a low voice, "he's a Tartar !" 

"Pray take some refreshment, sir," said I. 

Mr. Guppy sat down at the table, and began ner- 
vously sharpening the carving-knife on the carving- 
fork; still looking at me (as I felt quite sure with- 
out looking at him), in the same unusual manner. 
The sharpening lasted so long, that at last I felt a 
kind of obligation on me to raise my eyes, in order 
that I might break the spell under which he seemed 
to labour, of not being able to leave off. 

He immediately looked at the dish, and began to 
carve. 

"What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take 
a morsel of something?" 

"No, thank you," said I. 

"Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, 
miss?" said Mr. Guppy, hurriedly drinking off a 
glass of wine. 



MATURITY 171 

"Nothing, thank you," said I. "I have only 
waited to see that you have everything you want. 
Is there anything I can order for you?" 

"No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. 
I've everything that I can require to make me com- 
fortable — at least I — not comfortable — I'm never 
that:" he drank off two more glasses of wine, one 
after another. 

I thought I had better go. 

"I beg your pardon, miss !" said Mr. Guppy, ris- 
ing, when he saw me rise. "But would you allow 
me the favour of a minute's private conversa- 
tion?" 

Not knowing what to say, I sat down again. 

"What follows is without prejudice, miss?" said 
Mr. Guppy, anxiously bringing a chair towards my 
table. 

"I don't understand what you mean," said I, 
wondering. 

"It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't 
make any use of it to my detriment, at Kenge 
and Carboy's, or elsewhere. If our conversa- 
tion shouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I 
was, and am not to be prejudiced in my situation 
or worldly prospects. In short, it's in total con- 
fidence." 

"I am at a loss, sir," said I, "to imagine what 
you can have to communicate in total confidence 
to me, whom you have never seen but once; but I 
should be very sorry to do you any injury." 



172 DICKENS ' 

"Thank you, miss. I'm sure of it — that's quite 
sufficient/' All this time Mr. Guppy was either 
planing his forehead with his handkerchief, or 
tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the 
palm of his right. "If you would excuse my taking 
another glass of wine, miss, I think it might assist 
me in getting on, without a continual choke that 
cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant." 

He did so, and came back again. I took the op- 
portunity of moving well behind my table. 

"You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would 
you, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, apparently refreshed. 

"Not any," said I. 

"Not half a glass?" said Mr. Guppy; "quarter? 
No ! Then, to proceed. My present salary, Miss 
Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, is two pound 
a week. When I first had the happiness of looking 
upon you, it was one-fifteen, and had stood at that 
figure for a lengthened period. A rise of five has 
since taken place, and a further rise of five is guar- 
anteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding 
twelve months from the present date. My mother 
has a little property, which takes the form of a 
small life annuity; upon which she lives in an in- 
dependent though unassuming manner, in the Old 
Street Road. She is eminently calculated for a 
mother-in-law. She never interferes, is all for 
peace, and her disposition easy. She has her fail- 
ings — as who has not? — but I never knew her to 



MATURITY 173 

do it when company was present ; at which time you 
may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt 
liquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, 
Pentonville. It is lowly, but airy, open at the back, 
and considered one of the 'ealthiest outlets. Miss 
Summerson ! In the mildest language, I adore you. 
Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may 
say) to file a declaration — to make an offer !" 

Mr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well 
behind my table, and not much frightened. I said, 
"Get up from that ridiculous position immediately, 
sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied prom- 
ise and ring the bell!" 

"Hear me out, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, folding 
his hands. 

"I cannot consent to hear another word, sir," I 
returned, "unless you get up from the carpet di- 
rectly, and go and sit down at the table, as you 
ought to do if you have any sense at all." 

He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. 

"Yet what a mockery it is, miss," he said, with 
his hand upon his heart, and shaking his head at 
me in a melancholy manner over the tray, "to be 
stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul 
recoils from food at such a moment, miss." 

"I beg you to conclude," said I ; "you have asked 
me to hear you out, and I beg you to conclude." 

"I will, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "As I love and 
honour, so likewise I obey. Would that I could 



174 DICKENS 

make Thee the subject of that vow, before the 
shrine !" 

"That is quite impossible," said I, "and entirely 
out of the question." 

"I am aware," said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward 
over the tray, and regarding me, as I again strangely 
felt, though my eyes were not directed at him, with 
his late intent look, "I am aware that in worldly 
point of view, according to all appearances, my of- 
fer is a poor one. But, Miss Summerson ! Angel ! 
— No, don't ring — I have been brought up in a 
sharp school, and am accustomed to a variety of 
general practice. Though a young man, I have fer- 
reted out evidence, got up cases, and seen lots of 
life. Blest with your hand, what means might I 
not find of advancing your interests, and pushing 
your fortunes! What might I not get to know, 
nearly concerning you ? I know nothing now, cer- 
tainly; but what might I not, if I had your confi- 
dence, and you set me on?" 

I told him that he addressed my interest, or what 
he supposed to be my interest, quite as unsuccess- 
fully as he addressed my inclination; and he would 
now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, 
to go away immediately. 

"Cruel miss," said Mr. Guppy, "hear but another 
word ! I think you must have seen that I was struck 
with those charms, on the day when I waited at 
the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked 



MATURITY 175 

that I could not forbear a tribute to those charms 
when I put up the steps of the 'ackney-coach. It 
was a feeble tribute to Thee, but it was well meant. 
Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. 
I have walked up and down, of an evening, opposite 
Jellyby's house, only to look upon the bricks that 
once contained Thee. This out of to-day, quite an 
unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was 
its pretended object, went, was planned by me alone 
for Thee alone. If I speak of interest, it is only 
to recommend myself and my respectful wretched- 
ness. Love was before it, and is before it." 

"I should be pained, Mr. Guppy," said I, rising 
and putting my hand upon the bell-rope, "to do you, 
or any one who was sincere, the injustice of slight- 
ing any honest feeling, however disagreeably ex- 
pressed. If you have really meant to give me a 
proof of your good opinion, though ill-timed and 
misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank you. I have 
very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. 
I hope," I think I added, without very well knowing 
what I said, "that you will now go away as if you 
had never been so exceedingly foolish, and attend 
to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's business." 

"Half a minute, miss !" cried Mr. Guppy, check- 
ing me as I was about to ring. "This has been 
without prejudice?" 

"I will never mention it," said I, "unless you 
should give me future occasion to do so." 



176 DICKENS 

"A quarter of a minute, miss ! In case you should 
think better — at any time, however distant, that's 
no consequence, for my feelings can never alter — 
of anything I have said, particularly what might I 
not do — Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton 
Place, or if removed, or dead (of blighted hopes or 
anything of that sort), care of Mrs. Guppy, three 
hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be suffi- 
cient." 

HARD TIMES 

Hard Times, though of secondary importance as 
a story and work of art, is a truly significant work 
because of its educational suggestion. In this book, 
Dickens exhibits his scorn of the old-fashioned, cold 
and cruel system of education whereby the child is 
bully-ragged into a mechanical use of the memory, 
instead of being unfolded naturally in his latent 
powers through sympathy and love. Mr. Gradgrind 
is a famous impersonation of this old-time false 
pseudo-ideal of education. 

Mr. Gradgrind Orates 



"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys 
and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted 
in life. Plant nothing else, and root out every- 
thing else. You can only form the minds of rea- 



MATURITY 177 

soning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever 
be of any service to them. This is the principle 
upon which I bring up my own children, and this 
is the principle on which I bring up these children. 
Stick to Facts, Sir!" 

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault 
of a schoolroom, and the speaker's square fore- 
finger emphasized his observations by underscoring 
every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's 
sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's 
square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows 
for its base, while his eyes found commodious cel- 
larage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. 
The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, 
which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis 
was helped by the speaker's voice, which was in- 
flexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was 
helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the 
skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep 
the wind from its shining surface, all covered with 
knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head 
had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts 
stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, 
square coat, square legs, square shoulders — nay, his 
very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat 
with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn 
fact, as it was, — all helped the emphasis. 

"In this life, we want nothing but Facts, Sir; 
nothing but Facts !" 



178 DICKENS 

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third 
grown person present, all backed a little, and swept 
with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels 
then and there arranged in order, ready to have im- 
perial gallons of facts poured into them until they 
were full to the brim. 

ii 

Thomas Gradgrind, Sir. A man of realities. A 
man of facts and calculations. A man who pro- 
ceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, 
and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into 
allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, 
Sir — peremptorily Thomas — Thomas Gradgrind. 
With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multipli- 
cation table always in his pocket, Sir, ready to 
weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, 
and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere 
question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. 
You might hope to get some other nonsensical be- 
lief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus 
Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Grad- 
grind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but 
into the head of Thomas Gradgrind — no, Sir! 

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally 
introduced himself, whether to his private circle of 
acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such 
terms, no doubt, substituting the words "boys and 



MATURITY 179 

girls," for "Sir," Thomas Gradgrind now presented 
Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, 
who were to be filled so full of facts. 

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the 
cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of 
cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and pre- 
pared to blow them clean out of the regions of 
childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvaniz- 
ing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical 
substitute for the tender young imaginations that 
were to be stormed away. 

"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, 
squarely pointing with his square forefinger, "I 
don't know that girl. Who is that girl?" 

"Sissy Jupe, Sir," explained number twenty, 
blushing, standing up, and curtseying. 

"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. 
"Don't call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia." 

"It's father as calls me Sissy, Sir," returned the 
young girl in a trembling voice, and with another 
curtsey. 

"Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. 
Gradgrind. "Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. 
Let me see. What is your father?" 

"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, 
Sir." 

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the ob- 
jectionable calling with his hand. 



180 DICKENS 

"We don't want to know anything about that, 
here. You mustn't tell us about that, here. Your 
father breaks horses, don't he?" 

"If you please, Sir, when they can get any to 
break, they do break horses in the ring, Sir." 

"You mustn't tell us about the ring, here. Very 
well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. 
He doctors sick horses, I dare say?" 

"Oh yes, Sir." 

"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a 
farrier, and horsebreaker. Give me your definition 
of a horse." 

(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by 
this demand.) 

"Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!" 
said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all 
the little pitchers. "Girl number twenty possessed 
of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest 
of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. 
Bitzer, yours." 

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted 
suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit 
in the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one 
of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed 
room, irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls 
sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact 
bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow interval ; 
and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny 



MATURITY 181 

side, came in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of 
which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on the 
other side, a few rows in advance, caught the 
end. But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and 
dark-haired, that she seemed to receive a deeper 
and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it 
shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light- 
haired that the self -same rays appeared to draw out 
of him what little colour he ever possessed. His 
cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the 
short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into 
immediate contrast with something paler than 
themselves, expressed their form. His short- 
cropped hair might have been a mere continuation 
of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. 
His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the 
natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were 
cut, he would bleed white. 

"Bitzer/' said Thomas Gradgrind. "Your defi- 
nition of a horse. " 

"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, 
namely twenty- four grinders, four eye-teeth, and 
twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy 
countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but re- 
quiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks 
in mouth." Thus (and much more) Bitzer. 

"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind. 
"You know what a horse is." 



182 DICKENS 



LITTLE DORRIT 



Little Dorrit has never been ranked among the 
major successes of the author, but the picture of 
the Marshalsea prison, and of the Father of the 
Marshalsea, who is a free-hand study of the novel- 
ist's own parent at the time when he was confined 
in that place of detention for debt, is one of the 
finest characterizations and pieces of writing that 
has come from his pen. Here also is the keen sa- 
tiric sketch of the Circumlocutionary Office, in 
which the absurd pomposity and red tape of offi- 
cialdom is so capitally hit off. Those who have had 
most to do in our day with any large business or- 
ganization will be readiest to recognize the essential 
truth of such a satire. 

The Father of the Marshalsea 

Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors south 
of the church of Saint George, in the borough of 
Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going 
southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood 
there many years before, and it remained there some 
years afterwards; but it is gone now, and the world 
is none the worse without it. 

It was an oblong pile of barrack building, par- 
titioned into squalid houses standing back to back, 
so that there were no back rooms; environed by a 



MATURITY 183 

narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly 
spiked at top. Itself a close and confined prison 
for debtors, it contained within it a much closer 
and more confined jail for smugglers. Offenders 
against the revenue laws, and defaulters to excise 
or customs, who had incurred fines which they were 
unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated be- 
hind an iron-plated door, closing up a second prison, 
consisting of a strong cell or two, and a blind alley 
some yard and a half wide, which formed the mys- 
terious termination of the very limited skittle- 
ground in which the Marshalsea debtors bowled 
down their troubles. 

Supposed to be incarcerated there, because the 
time had rather outgrown the strong cells and the 
blind alley. In practice they had come to be consid- 
ered a little too bad, though in theory they were 
quite as good as ever ; which may be observed to be 
the case at the present day with other cells that are 
not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that 
are stone-blind. Hence the smugglers habitually 
consorted with the debtors (who received them with 
open arms), except at certain constitutional mo- 
ments when somebody came from some Office, to 
go through some form of overlooking something 
which neither he nor anybody else knew anything 
about. On those truly British occasions, the smug- 
glers, if any, made a feint of walking into the strong 
cells and the blind alley, while this somebody pre- 



184 DICKENS 

tended to do his something; and made a reality of 
walking out again as soon as he hadn't done it — 
neady epitomising the administration of most of 
the public affairs in our right little, tight little island. 

There had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, 
long before the day when the sun shone on Mar- 
seilles and on the opening of this narrative, a debtor 
with whom this narrative has some concern. 

He was, at that time, a very amiable and very 
helpless middle-aged gentleman, who was going out 
again directly. Necessarily, he was going out again 
directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned 
upon a debtor who was not. He brought in a port- 
manteau with him, which he doubted its being worth 
while to unpack; he was so perfectly clear — like all 
the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said — that 
he was going out again directly. 

He was a shy, retiring man ; well-looking, though 
in an effeminate style; with a mild voice, curling 
hair, and irresolute hands — rings upon the fingers 
in those days — which nervously wandered to his 
trembling lip a hundred times, in the first half-hour 
of his acquaintance with the jail. His principal 
anxiety was about his wife. 

"Do you think, sir," he asked the turnkey, "that 
she will be very much shocked, if she should come 
to the gate to-morrow morning?" 

The turnkey gave it as the result of his experience 
that some of 'em was and some of 'em wasn't. In 



MATURITY 185 

general, more no than yes. "What like is she, you 
see?" he philosophically asked: "that's what it 
hinges on." 

"She is very delicate and inexperienced indeed." 

"That," said the turnkey, "is agen her." 

"She is so little used to go out alone," said the 
debtor, "that I am at a loss to think how she will 
ever make her way here, if she walks." 

"P'raps," quoth the turnkey, "she'll take a 'ack- 
ney-coach." 

"Perhaps." The irresolute fingers went to the 
trembling lip. "I hope she will. She may not 
think of it." 

"Or p'raps," said the turnkey, offering his sug- 
gestions from the top of his well-worn wooden 
stool, as he might have offered them to a child for 
whose weakness he felt a compassion, "p'raps she'll 
get her brother, or her sister, to come along with 
her." 

"She has no brother or sister." 

"Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young 'ooman s 
greengrocer. — Dash it! One or another on 'em," 
said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the re- 
fusal of all his suggestions. 

"I fear — I hope it is not against the rules — that 
she will bring the children." 

"The children?" said the turnkey. "And the 
rules? Why, lord set you up like a corner pin, 
we've a reg'lar play-ground o' children here. Chil- 



186 DICKENS 

dren? Why, we swarm with 'em. How many a 
you got?" 

'Two," said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand 
to his lip again, and turning into the prison. 

The turnkey followed him with his eyes. "And 
you another," he observed to himself, "which makes 
three on you. And your wife another, I'll lay a 
crown. Which makes four on you. And another 
coming, I'll lay half-a-crown. Which'll make five 
on you. And I'll go another seven and six-pence 
to name which is the helplessest, the unborn baby 
or you !" 

He was right in all his particulars. She came 
next day with a little boy of three years old, and a 
little girl of two, and he stood entirely corrobo- 
rated. 

"Got a room now, haven't you?" the turnkey 
asked the debtor after a week or two. 

"Yes, I have got a very good room." 

"Any little sticks a-coming, to furnish it?" said 
the turnkey. 

"I expect a few necessary articles of furniture 
to be delivered by the carrier, this afternoon." 

"Missus and little 'uns a-coming to keep you 
company?" asked the turnkey. 

"Why, yes, we think it better that we should not 
be scattered, even for a few weeks." 

"Even for a few weeks, of course," replied the 



MATURITY 187 

turnkey. And he followed him again with his eyes, 
and nodded his head seven times when he was gone. 

The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a 
partnership, of which he knew no more than that 
he had invested money in it; by legal matters of 
assignment and settlement, conveyance here and 
conveyance there, suspicion of unlawful preference 
of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious 
spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody 
on the face of the earth could be more incapable 
of explaining any single item in the heap of con- 
fusion than the debtor himself, nothing compre- 
hensible could be made of his case. To question 
him in detail, and endeavour to reconcile his an- 
swers; to closet him with accountants and sharp 
practitioners, learned in the wiles of insolvency and 
bankruptcy; was only to put the case out at com- 
pound interest of incomprehensibility. The irreso- 
lute fingers fluttered more and more ineffectually 
about the trembling lip on every such occasion, and 
the sharpest practitioners gave him up as a hopeless 
job. 

"Out?" said the turnkey, "he'll never get out. 
Unless his creditors take him by the shoulders and 
shove him out." 

He had been there five or six months, when he 
came running to this turnkey one forenoon to tell 
him, breathless and pale, that his wife was ill. 



188 DICKENS 

"As anybody might have known she would be," 
said the turnkey. 

"We intended," he returned, "that she should go 
to a country lodging only to-morrow. What am I 
to do! Oh, good heaven, what am I to do!" 

"Don't waste your time in clasping your hands 
and biting your fingers," responded the practical 
turnkey, taking him by the elbow, "but come along 
with me." 

The turnkey conducted him — trembling from 
head to foot, and constantly crying under his breath, 
What was he to do ! while his irresolute fingers 
bedabbled the tears upon his face — up one of the 
common staircases in the prison, to a door on the 
garret story. Upon which door the turnkey knocked 
with the handle of his key. 

"Come in!" cried a Voice inside. 

The turnkey opening the door, disclosed in a 
wretched, ill-smelling little room, two hoarse, puffy, 
red- faced personages seated at a rickety table, play- 
ing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and drinking brandy. 

"Doctor," said the turnkey, "here's a gentleman's 
wife in want of you without a minute's loss of 
time!" 

The doctor's friend was in the positive degree 
of hoarseness, pufiiness, red-facedness, all-fours, 
tobacco, dirt, and brandy; the doctor in the com- 
parative — hoarser, punier, more red- faced, more 
all-fourey, tobaccoer, dirtier, and brandier. The 



MATURITY 189 

doctor was amazingly shabby, in a torn and darned 
rough-weather sea- jacket, out at elbows and emi- 
nently short of buttons (he had been in his time 
the experienced surgeon carried by a passenger 
ship), the dirtiest white trousers conceivable by 
mortal man, carpet slippers, and no visible linen. 
"Child-bed?" said the doctor. "I'm the boy!" With 
that the doctor took a comb from the chimney-piece 
and stuck his hair upright — which appeared to be 
his way of washing himself — produced a profes- 
sional chest or case, of most abject appearance, 
from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and 
coals were, settled his chin in the frowsy wrapper 
round his neck, and became a ghastly medical scare- 
crow. 

The doctor and the debtor ran down-stairs, leav- 
ing the turnkey to return to the lock, and made for 
the debtor's room. All the ladies in the prison had 
got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some 
of them had already taken possession of the two 
children, and were hospitably carrying them off; 
others were offering loans of little comforts from 
their own scanty store; others were sympathising 
with the greatest volubility. The gentlemen pris- 
oners, feeling themselves at a disadvantage, had 
for the most part retired, not to say sneaked, to 
their rooms; from the open windows of which some 
of them now complimented the doctor with whistles 
as he passed below, while others, with several stories 



190 DICKENS 

between them, interchanged sarcastic references to 
the prevalent excitement. 

Now, the debtor was a very different man from 
the doctor, but he had already begun to travel, by 
his opposite segment of the circle, to the same point. 
Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon 
found a dull relief in it. He was under lock and 
key; but the lock and key that kept him in, kept 
numbers of his troubles out. If he had been a man 
with strength of purpose to face those troubles and 
fight them, he might have broken the net that held 
him, or broken his heart; but being what he was, 
he languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and 
never more took one step upward. 

When he was relieved of the perplexed affairs 
that nothing would make plain, through having 
them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents 
in succession who could make neither beginning, 
middle, nor end of them or him, he found his mis- 
erable place of refuge a quieter refuge than it had 
been before. He had unpacked the portmanteau 
long ago; and his elder children now played regu- 
larly about the yard, and everybody knew the baby, 
and claimed a kind of proprietorship in her. 

"Why, I'm getting proud of you," said his 
friend the turnkey, one day. "You'll be the oldest 
inhabitant soon. The Marshalsea wouldn't be like 
the Marshalsea now, without you and your family." 

The turnkey really was proud of him. He would 



MATURITY 191 

mention him in laudatory terms to new-comers, 
when his back was turned. "You took notice of 
him," he would say, "that went out of the Lodge 
just now?" 

New-comer would probably answer Yes. 

"Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a 
man was. Ed'cated at no end of expense. Went 
into the Marshal's house once, to try a new piano 
for him. Played it, I understand, like one o'clock 
— beautiful! As to languages — speaks anything. 
We've had a Frenchman here in his time, and it's 
my opinion he knowed more than the Frenchman 
did. We've had an Italian here in his time, and 
he shut him up in about half a minute. You'll find 
some characters behind other locks, I don't say you 
won't; but if you want the top sawyer, in such re- 
spects as I've mentioned, you must come to the 
Marshalsea." 

When his youngest child was eight years old, his 
wife, who had long been languishing away — of her 
own inherent weakness, not that she retained any 
greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than 
he did — went upon a visit to a poor friend and old 
nurse in the country, and died there. Fie remained 
shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards; 
and an attorney's clerk, who was going through 
the Insolvent Court, engrossed an address of con- 
dolence to him, which looked like a Lease, and 
which all the prisoners signed. When he appeared 



192 DICKENS 

again he was greyer (he had soon begun to turn 
grey) ; and the turnkey noticed that his hands went 
often to his trembling lips again, as they had used to 
do when he first came in. But he got pretty well 
over it in a month or two ; and in the meantime the 
children played about the yard as regularly as ever, 
but in black. 

Then Mrs. Bangham, long popular medium of 
communication with the outer world, began to be 
infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose 
on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, 
and the change of her clients nine-pence short. His 
son began to supersede Mrs. Bangham, and to exe- 
cute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be 
of the prison prisonous and of the street streety. 

Time went on, and the turnkey began to fail. 
His chest swelled and his legs got weak, and he 
was short of breath. The well-worn wooden stool 
was "beyond him," he complained. He sat in an 
arm-chair with a cushion, and sometimes wheezed 
so, for minutes together, that he couldn't turn the 
key. When he was overpowered by these fits, the 
debtor often turned it for him. 

"You and me," said the turnkey, one snowy win- 
ter's night, when the lodge, with a bright fire in 
it, was pretty full of company, "is the oldest in- 
habitants. I wasn't here myself above seven years 
before you. I shan't last long. When I'm off the 
lock for good and all, you'll be the Father of the 
Marshalsea." 



MATURITY 193 

The turnkey went off the lock of this world, next 
day. His words were remembered and repeated; 
and tradition afterwards handed down from gen- 
eration to generation — a Marshalsea generation 
might be calculated as about three months — that 
the shabby old debtor with the soft manner and the 
white hair was the Father of the Marshalsea. 

And he grew to be proud of the title. If any 
impostor had arisen to claim it, he would have 
shed tears in resentment of the attempt to deprive 
him of his rights. A disposition began to be per- 
ceived in him, to exaggerate the number of years 
he had been there ; it was generally understood that 
you must deduct a few from his account; he was 
vain, the fleeting generation of debtors said. 

All new-comers were presented to him. He was 
punctilious in the exaction of this ceremony. The 
wits would perform the office of introduction with 
overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could 
not easily overstep his sense of its gravity. He 
received them in his poor room (he disliked an 
introduction in the mere yard, as informal — a thing 
that might happen to anybody), with a kind of 
bowed-down beneficence. They were welcome to 
the Marshalsea, he would tell them. Yes, he was 
the Father of the place. So the world was kind 
enough to call him; and so he was, if more than 
twenty years of residence gave him a claim to the 
title. It looked small at first, but there was very 



194 DICKENS 

good company there — among a mixture — necessa- 
rily a mixture — and very good air. 

It became a not unusual circumstance for letters 
to be put under his door at night, enclosing half-a- 
crown, two half-crowns, now and then at long in- 
tervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the 
Marshalsea. "With the compliments of a collegian 
taking leave." He received the gifts as tributes 
from admirers to a public character. Sometimes 
these correspondents assumed facetious names, as 
the Brick, Bellows, Old Gooseberry, Wideawake, 
Snooks, Mops, Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man; but 
he considered this in bad taste, and was always a 
little hurt by it. 

In the fulness of time, this correspondence show- 
ing signs of wearing out, and seeming to require 
an effort on the part of the correspondent to which 
in the hurried circumstances of departure many of 
them might not be equal, he established the custom 
of attending collegians of a certain standing to the 
gate, and taking leave of them there. The collegian 
under treatment, after shaking hands, would occa- 
sionally stop to wrap up something in a bit of paper, 
and would come back again, calling "Hi I" 

He would look round surprised. "Me?" he 
would say, with a smile. 

By this time the collegian would be up with him, 
and he would paternally add, "What have you for- 
gotten? What can I do for you?" 



MATURITY 195 

"I forgot to leave this," the collegian would 
usually return, "for the Father of the Marshalsea." 

"My good sir," he would rejoin, "he is infinitely 
obliged to you." But, to the last, the irresolute hand 
of old would remain in the pocket into which he 
had slipped the money, during two or three turns 
about the yard, lest the transaction should be too 
conspicuous to the general body of collegians. 

One afternoon he had been doing the honours 
of the place to a rather large party of collegians 
who happened to be going out, when, as he was 
coming back, he encountered one from the poor side 
who had been taken in execution for a small sum 
a week before, had "settled" in the course of that 
afternoon, and was going out too. The man was 
a mere Plasterer in his working dress; had his wife 
with him, and a bundle ; and was in high spirits. 

"God bless you, sir," he said in passing. 

"And you," benignantly returned the Father of 
the Marshalsea. 

They were pretty far divided, going their several 
ways, when the Plasterer called out, "I say ! — sir !" 
and came back to him. 

"It an't much," said the Plasterer, putting a little 
pile of halfpence in his hand, "but it's well meant." 

The Father of the Marshalsea had never been 
offered tribute in copper yet. His children often 
had, and with his perfect acquiescence it had gone 
into the common purse, to buy meat that he had 



196 DICKENS 

eaten, and drink that he had drunk; but fustian 
splashed with white lime, bestowing halfpence on 
him, front to front, was new. 

"How dare you!" he said to the man, and feebly 
burst into tears. 

The Plasterer turned him towards the wall, that 
his face might not be seen; and the action was so 
delicate, and the man was so penetrated with re- 
pentance, and asked pardon so honestly, that he 
could make him no less acknowledgment than, "I 
know you meant it kindly. Say no more." 

"Bless your soul, sir," urged the Plasterer, "I 
did indeed. I'd do more by you than the rest of 
'em do, I fancy." 

"What would you do ?" he asked. 

"I'd come back to see you, after I was let out." 

"Give me the money again," said the other ea- 
gerly, "and I'll keep it, and never spend it. Thank 
you for it, thank you! I shall see you again?" 

"If I live a week, you shall." 

They shook hands and parted. The collegians, 
assembled in Symposium in the Snuggery that night, 
marvelled what had happened to their Father; he 
walked so late in the shadows of the yard, and 
seemed so downcast. 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

r A Tale of Two Cities takes high rank among the 
few historical romances of English speech; not so 



MATURITY 197 

perfect a thing as Thackeray's Henry Esmond, it 
certainly can be put in favorable comparison with 
Eliot's Romola, — and what is more important, is a 
picturesque and powerful presentation of salient as- 
pects of the French Revolution. The theme of 
Carton's sacrifice of himself for another — one of 
the eternal themes — keeps its thrill, whether on the 
printed page or on the boards of a theater. Never- 
theless, the judicious student of Dickens must ac- 
knowledge that this romance is less typical of the 
author than any one of half a dozen books that can 
be named, for the excellent reason that it is almost 
entirely devoid of the comic scene and character 
portrayal which are so distinctive of Charles Dick- 
ens. The somber atmosphere of the tale befits the 
subject-matter, yet seems unlike the creator of Peck- . 
sniff, Micawber, and Sarah Gamp. I have already 
suggested a possible cause for this peculiar change 
of tone; a reason perhaps subjective rather than 
artistic merely. The reader is advised, however, to 
make himself familiar with this fine story, not only 
for enjoyment's sake, but to get an increasing sense 
of Dickens's scope and variety. He has here taken 
the conventional formula of melodramatic adven- 
ture fiction and wrought with it to a result of pic- 
turesqueness and power. And the theme of sacrifice 
as such is one germane to the genius of an author 
who throughout his work lays emphasis upon the j 
nobler aspects of humanity. Yet the knower of 



198 DICKENS 

Dickens, those who recognize what he was called 
into the world especially to do, can not but miss in 
such a creation that gusto of spirits, and that sali- 
ency of setting off the humorsome foibles of men, 
which, after all, and above all else, make this writer 
a unique contributor to the story-telling that is Eng- 
lish. 

The Footsteps Die Out Forever 

Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, 
hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's 
wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and in- 
satiate Monsters imagined since imagination could 
record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guil- 
lotine. And yet there is not in France, with its 
rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a 
root, a spring, a peppercorn, which will grow to 
maturity under conditions more certain than those 
that have produced this horror. Crush humanity 
out of shape once more, under similar hammers, 
and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. 
Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppres- 
sion over again, and it will surely yield the same 
fruit according to its kind. 

Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these 
back again to what they were, thou powerful en- 
chanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the car- 
riages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal 
nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches 



MATURITY 199 

that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, 
the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the 
great magician who majestically works out the ap- 
pointed order of the Creator, never reverses his 
transformations. "If thou be changed into this 
shape by the will of God," say the seers to the en- 
chanted, in the wise Arabian stories, "then remain 
so! But, if thou wear this form through mere 
passing conjuration, then resume thy former as- 
pect!" Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll 
along. 

As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, 
they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow 
among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces 
are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs 
go steadily onward. So used are the regular in- 
habitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in 
many windows there are no people, and in some 
the occupation of the hands is not so much as sus- 
pended, while the eyes survey the faces in the tum- 
brils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to 
see the sight; then he points his finger, with some- 
thing of the complacency of a curator or authorised 
exponent, to this cart and to that, and seems to tell 
who sat here yesterday, and who there the day be- 
fore. 

Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these 
things, and all things on their last roadside, with 
an impassive stare ; others, with a lingering interest 



200 DICKENS 

in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with 
drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, 
there are some so heedful of their looks that they 
cast upon the multitude such glances as they have 
seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their 
eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts 
together. Only one, and he is a miserable creature, 
of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk 
by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not 
one of the whole number appeals by look or ges- 
ture, to the pity of the people. 

There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding 
abreast of the tumbrils, and faces are often turned 
up to some of them, and they are asked some ques- 
tion. It would seem to be always the same ques- 
tion, for, it is always followed by a press of people 
towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of 
that cart, frequently point out one man in it with 
their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know 
which is he; he stands at the back of the tumbril 
with his head bent down, to converse with a mere 
girl who sits at the side of the cart, and holds his 
hand. He has no curiosity or care for the scene 
about him, and always speaks to the girl. Here 
and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries 
are raised against him. If they move him at all, 
it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a 
little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily 
touch his face, his arms being bound. 



MATURITY 201 

On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming- 
up of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and the prison- 
sheep. He looks into the first of them : not there. 
He looks into the second: not there. He already 
asks himself, "Has he sacrificed me?" when his 
face clears, as he looks into the third. 

"Which is Evremonde ?" says a man behind him. 

"That. At the back there." 

"With his hand in the girl's?" 

"Yes." 

The man cries, "Down, Evremonde! To the 
Guillotine all aristocrats ! Down, Evremonde !" 

"Hush, hush !" the Spy entreats him, timidly. 

"And why not, citizen?" 

"He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid 
in five minutes more. Let him be at peace." 

But the man continuing to exclaim, "Down, 
Evremonde !" the face of Evremonde is for a mo- 
ment turned towards him. Evremonde then sees 
the Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his 
way. 

The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the 
furrow ploughed among the populace is turning 
round, to come on into the place of execution, and 
end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, 
now crumble in and close behind the last plough 
as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillo- 
tine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden 
of public diversion, are a number of women, busily 



202 DICKENS 

knitting. On one of the foremost chairs, stands 
The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. 

"Therese !" she cries, in her shrill tones. "Who 
has seen her? Therese Defarge!" 

"She never missed before," says a knitting- 
woman of the sisterhood. 

"No; nor will she miss now," cries The Ven- 
geance, petulantly. "Therese!" 

"Louder," the woman recommends. 

Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still 
she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, 
with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly 
bring her. Send other women up and down to seek 
her, lingering somewhere; and yet, although the 
messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable 
whether of their own wills they will go far enough 
to find her! 

"Bad Fortune!" cries The Vengeance, stamping 
her foot in the chair, "and here are the tumbrils! 
And Evremonde will be despatched in a wink, and 
she not here ! See her knitting in my hand, and her 
empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and 
disappointment !" 

As The Vengeance descends from her elevation 
to do it, the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. 
The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and 
ready. Crash! — A head is held up, and the knit- 
ting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look 



MATURITY 203 

at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, 
count One. 

The second tumbril empties and moves on; the 
third comes up. Crash ! — And the knitting-women, 
never faltering or pausing in their work, count Two. 

The supposed Evremonde descends, and the 
seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has 
not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, 
but still holds it as he promised. He gently places 
her with her back to the crashing engine that con- 
stantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his 
face and thanks him. 

"But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so 
composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, 
faint of heart ; nor should I have been able to raise 
my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that 
we might have hope and comfort here today. I 
think you were sent to me by Heaven." 

"Or you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep 
your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other 
object." 

"I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall 
mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid." 

"They will be rapid. Fear not!" 

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of 
victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye 
to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, 
these two children of the Universal Mother, else 



204 DICKENS 

so wide apart and differing, have come together on 
the dark highway, to repair home together, and to 
rest in her bosom. 

"Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask 
you one last question? I am very ignorant, and 
it troubles me — just a little." 

"Tell me what it is." 

"I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, 
like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five 
years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's 
house in the south country. Poverty parted us, 
and she knows nothing of my fate — for I cannot 
write — and if I could, how should I tell her! It 
is better as it is." 

"Yes, yes; better as it is." 

"What I have been thinking as we came along, 
and what I am still thinking now, as I look into 
your kind strong face which gives me so much sup- 
port, is this: — If the Republic really does good to 
the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in 
all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: 
she may even live to be old." 

"What then, my gentle sister?" 

"Do you think :" the uncomplaining eyes in which 
there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the 
lips part a little more and tremble: "that it will 
seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better 
land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully 
sheltered?" 



MATURITY 205 

"It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, 
and no trouble there." 

"You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. 
Am I to kiss you now ? Is the moment come ?" 

"Yes." 

She kisses his lips ; he kisses hers ; they solemnly 
bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble 
as he releases it ; nothing worse than a sweet, bright 
constancy is in the patient face. She goes next be- 
fore him — is gone ; the knitting- women count 
Twenty-Two. 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the 
Lord : he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and believeth 
in Me shall never die." 

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning 
of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps 
in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells for- 
ward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all 
flashes away. Twenty-Three. 



They said of him, about the city that night, that 
it was the peace fullest man's face ever beheld there. 
Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. 

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same 
axe — a woman — had asked at the foot of the same 
scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write 



206 DICKENS 

down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he 
had given an utterance to his, and they were pro- 
phetic, they would have been these : 

"I see Barsard, and Cly, Defarge, The Ven- 
geance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the 
new oppressors who have risen on the destruction 
of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, 
before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a 
beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this 
abyss, and, in their struggle to be truly free, in 
their triumphs and defeats, through long years to 
come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous 
time of which this is the natural birth, gradually 
making expiation for itself and wearing out. 

"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, 
peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that Eng- 
land which I shall see no more. I see Her with 
a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I 
see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise re- 
stored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, 
and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their 
friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all 
he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. 

"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and 
in the hearts of their descendants, generations 
hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me 
on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her 
husband, their course done, lying side by side in 
their last earthly bed, and I know that each was 



MATURITY 207 

not more honoured and held sacred in the other's 
soul, than I was in the souls of both. 

"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and 
who bore my name, a man winning his way up in 
that path of life which once was mine. I see him 
winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious 
there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw 
upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just 
judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my 
name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, 
to this place — then fair to look upon, with not a 
trace of this day's disfigurement — and I hear him 
tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering 
voice. 

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I 
have ever done ; it is a far, far better rest that I go 
to than I have ever known." 

Of the three pieces of fiction written in the period 
of his ripest art — the decade 1860-70 — Great Ex- 
pectations, Our Mutual Friend, and the unfinished 
Mystery of Ediuin Drood, the first-named stands 
out as a most remarkable performance. Structurally, 
Dickens never did a finer thing, if indeed he has writ- 
ten any novel which conveys such a sense of organic 
unity and clean-cut building up to a climax. Dickens 
was nearly fifty when it appeared. Aside from the 
artistic quality of the handling, it appeals as an 
ingenious melodrama, and is rich in the typical 



208 DICKENS 

Dickensian characters : Pip, the Gargerys, Jaggers, 
Wemmick, Pumblechooks, and Wopsles; no Dick- 
ens lover could spare these inimitables from the 
bead-roll that makes him memorable. The grave 
romantic atmosphere which surrounds Miss Ha- 
visham and the Manor House is perhaps less con- 
vincing to-day than when it was done ; but concern- 
ing Magwitch, the convict with the white soul, there 
can be but one opinion: he is magnificent. The 
lesson of the book, moreover, "pride goeth before 
a fall," is not obtruded so definitely as in some of 
the earlier works. An all-pervasive effect of mellow 
art bathes the book, which surely deserves to be 
ranked with the choicest progeny of the author's 
fecund power. 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 



My father's family name being Pirrip, and my 
christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make 
of both names nothing longer or more explicit than 
Pip. So I called myself Pip, and came to be called 

I gave Pirrip as my father's family name, on the 
authority of his tombstone and my sister — Mrs. Joe 
Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never 
saw my father or my mother, and never saw any 



MATURITY 209 

likeness of either of them (for their days were 
long before the days of photographs), my first fan- 
cies regarding what they were like, were unreason- 
ably derived from their tombstones. The shape of 
the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea 
that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly 
black hair. From the character and turn of the 
inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, 3 ' 
I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was 
freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, 
each about a foot and a half long, which were ar- 
ranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were 
sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine 
— who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly 
early in that universal struggle — I am indebted for 
a belief I religiously entertained that they had all 
been born on their backs with their hands in their 
trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in 
this state of existence. 

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, 
within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. 
My first most vivid and broad impression of the 
identity of things, seems to me to have been gained 
on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. 
At such a time I found out for certain, that this 
bleak place overgrown with nettles was the church- 
yard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, 
and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead 
and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, 



210 DICKENS 

Abraham, Tobias and Roger, infant children of the 
aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the 
dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, inter- 
sected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scat- 
tered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and 
that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and 
that the distant savage lair from which the wind 
was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bun- 
dle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning 
to cry, was Pip. 

"Hold your noise !" cried a terrible voice, as a 
man started up from among the graves at the side 
of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, 
or I'll cut your throat !" 

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great 
iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with 
broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his 
head. A man who had been soaked in water, and 
smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by 
flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars ; who 
limped and shivered, and glared and growled; and 
whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me 
by the chin. 

"O! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in 
terror. "Pray don't do it, sir." 

"Tell us your name !" said the man. "Quick !" 

"Pip, sir." 

"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give 
it mouth !" 



MATURITY 211 

"Pip. Pip, sir." 

"Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint 
out the place !" 

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat 
in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile 
or more from the church. 

The man, after looking at me for a moment, 
turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. 
There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. 
When the church came to itself — for he was so 
sudden and strong that he made it go head over 
heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my 
feet — when the church came to itself, I say, I was 
seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate 
the bread ravenously. 

"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, 
"what fat cheeks you ha' got." 

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time 
undersized, for my years, and not strong. 

"Darn me if I couldn't eat 'em," said the man, 
with a threatening shake of his head, "and if I 
han't a mind to't!" 

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, 
and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had 
put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to 
keep myself from crying. 

"Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's 
your mother?" 

"There, sir!" said I. 



212 DICKENS 

He started, made a short run, and stopped and 
looked over his shoulder. 

"There, sir!" I timidly explained. "Also Geor- 
giana. That's my mother." 

"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your 
father alonger your mother?" 

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; late of this parish." 

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d'ye 
live with — supposin' you're kindly let to live, which 
I han't made up my mind about?" 

"My sister, sir — Mrs. Joe Gargery — wife of Joe 
Gargery, the blacksmith, sir." 

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And he looked down 
at his leg. 

After darkly looking at his leg and at me several 
times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me 
by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could 
hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully 
down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly 
up into his. 

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being 
whether you're to be let to live. You know what 
a file is?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"And you know what wittles is?" 

"Yes, sir." 

After each question he tilted me over a little 
more, so as to give me a greater sense of helpless- 
ness and danger. 



MATURITY 213 

"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And 
you get me wittles." He tilted me again. "You 
bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again. "Or 
I'll cut your heart and liver out." He tilted me 
again. 

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that 
I clung to him with both hands, and said, "If you 
would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, 
perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could at- 
tend more." 

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so 
that the church jumped over its own weather-cock. 
Then, he held me by the arms in an upright position 
on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful 
terms : 

"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that 
file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at 
that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you 
never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign 
concerning your having seen such a person as me, 
or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. 
You fail, or you go- from my words in any par- 
tikler, no matter how small it is, and your heart 
and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. 
Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's 
a young man hid with me, in comparison with which 
young man I am an Angel. That young man hears 
the words I speak. That young man has a secret 
way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and 



214 DICKENS 

at his heart, and at his liver. It is in vain for a 
boy to attempt to hide himself from that young 
man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in 
bed, my tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over 
his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, 
but that young man will softly creep and creep his 
way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that 
young man from harming of you at the present mo- 
ment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to 
hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what 
do you say?" 

I said that I would get him the file, and I would 
get him what broken bits of food I could, and I 
would come to him at the Battery, early in the 
morning. 

"Say, Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said 
the man. 

I said so, and he took me down. 

"Now," he pursued, "you remember what you've 
undertook, and you remember that young man, and 
you get home!" 

"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered. 

"Much of that !" said he, glancing about him over 
the cold wet flat. "I wish I was a frog. Or a eel !" 

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body 
in both his arms — clasping himself, as if to hold 
himself together — and limped towards the low 
church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way 
among the nettles, and among the brambles that 



MATURITY 215 

bound the green mounds, he looked in my young 
eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead 
people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, 
to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in. 

When he came to the low church wall, he got 
over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and 
stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When 
I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, 
and made the best use of my legs. But presently 
I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on 
again towards the river, still hugging himself in 
both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet 
among the great stones dropped into the marshes 
here and there, for stepping-places when the rains 
were heavy, or the tide was in. 

The marshes were just a long black horizontal 
line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the 
river was just another horizontal line, not nearly 
so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a 
row of long angry red lines and dense black lines 
intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly 
make out the only two black things in all the pros- 
pect that seemed to be standing upright; one of 
these was the beacon by which the sailors steered 
— like an unhooped cask upon a pole — an ugly thing 
when you were near it; the other a gibbet, with 
some chains hanging to it which had once held a 
pirate. The man was limping on towards this lat- 
ter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come 



216 DICKENS 

down, and going back to hook himself up again. 
It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and 
as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after 
him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I 
looked all round for the horrible young man, and 
could see no signs of him. But now I was fright- 
ened again, and ran home without stopping. 

n 

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than 
twenty years older than I, and had established a 
great reputation with herself and the neighbors be- 
cause she had brought me up "by hand." Having 
at that time to find out for myself what the expres- 
sion meant, and knowing her to have a hard and 
heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying 
it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed 
that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by 
hand. 

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; 
and I had a general impression that she must have 
made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was 
a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side 
of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very 
undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow 
got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, 
good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, 
dear fellow — a sort of Hercules in strength, and 
also in weakness. 



MATURITY 217 

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, 
had such a prevailing redness of skin, that I some- 
times used to wonder whether it was possible she 
washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of 
soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always 
wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind 
with two loops, and having a square impregnable 
bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. 
She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a 
strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this 
apron so much. Though I really see no reason 
why she should have worn it at all: or why, if she 
did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off 
every day of her life. 

Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a 
wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our 
country were — most of them, at that time. When 
I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut 
up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe 
and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences 
as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the mo- 
ment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in 
at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner. 

"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking 
for you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a 
baker's dozen." 

"Is she?" 

"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's 
got Tickler with her." 



218 DICKENS 

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only 
button on my waistcoat round and round, and 
looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was 
a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision 
with my tickled frame. 

"She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and 
she made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged 
out. That's what she did," said Joe, slowly clearing 
the fire between the lowe** bars with the poker, and 
looking at it: "she Ram-paged out, Pip." 

"Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated 
him as a larger species of child, and as no more 
than my equal. 

"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, 
"she's been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about 
five minutes, Pip. She's a-coming! Get behind the 
door, old chap, and have the jack-towell betwixt 
you." 

I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throw- 
ing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction 
behind it, immediately divined the cause, and ap- 
plied Tickler to its further investigation. She con- 
cluded by throwing me — I often served as a con- 
nubial missile — at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me 
on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and 
quietly fenced me up there with his great leg. 

"Where have you been, you young monkey?" 
said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell me di- 



MATURITY 219 

rectly what you've been doing to wear me away 
with fret and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out 
of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was 
five hundred Gargerys." 

"I have only been to the churchyard," said I, 
from my stool, crying and rubbing myself. 

"Churchyard!" repeated my sister. "If it warn't 
for me you'd have been to the churchyard long ago, 
and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?" 

"You did," said I. 

"And why did I do it, I should like to know?" 
exclaimed my sister. 

I whimpered, "I don't know." 

"I don't !" said my sister. "I'd never do it again ! 
I know that. I may truly say I've never had this 
apron of mine off, since born you were. It's bad 
enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gar- 
gery), without being your mother." 

My thoughts strayed from that question as I 
looked disconsolately at the fire. For, the fugitive 
out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mys- 
terious young man, the file, the food, and the dread- 
ful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those 
sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging 
coals. 

"Hah!" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his 
station. "Churchyard, indeed ! You may well say 
churchyard, you two," One of us, by-the-bye, had 



220 DICKENS 

not said it at all. "You'll drive me to the church- 
yard betwixt you, one of these days, and oh, a 
pr-r-recious pair you'd be without me!" 

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe 
peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were men- 
tally casting me and himself up, and calculating 
what kind of pair we practically should make, under 
the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After 
that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and 
whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his 
blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times. 

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our 
bread-and-butter for us, that never varied. First, 
with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and 
fast against her bib — where it sometimes got a pin 
into it, and sometimes a needle, which we after- 
wards got into our mouths. Then she took some 
butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it 
on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if 
she were making a plaister — using both sides of the 
knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and 
moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, 
she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge 
of the plaister, and then sawed a very thick round 
off the loaf: which she finally, before separating 
from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe 
got one, and I the other. 

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I 
dared not eat my slice. I felt that I must have 



MATURITY 221 

something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, 
and his ally, the still more dreadful young man. 
I knew Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strict- 
est kind, and that my larcenous researches might 
find nothing available in the safe. Therefore I 
resolved to put my hunk of bread-and-butter down 
the leg of my trousers. 

The effort of resolution necessary to the achieve- 
ment of this purpose, I found to be quite awful. It 
was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from 
the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth 
of water. And it was made the more difficult by 
the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned 
freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his good- 
natured companionship with me, it was our eve- 
ning habit to compare the way we bit through our 
slices, by silently holding them up to each other's 
admiration now and then — which stimulated us to 
new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited 
me, by the display of his fast-diminishing slice, to 
enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he 
found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea 
on one knee, and my untouched bread-and-butter 
on the other. At last, I desperately considered that 
the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it 
had best be done in the least improbable manner 
consistent with the circumstances. I took advan- 
tage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, 
and got my bread-and-butter down my leg. 



222 DICKENS 

Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what 
he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a 
thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn't seem 
to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much 
longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, 
and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was 
about to take another bite, and had just got his head 
on one side for a good purchase on it, when his 
eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread-and-butter 
was gone. 

The wonder and consternation with which Joe 
stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at 
me, were too evident to escape my sister's observa- 
tion. 

"What's the matter now?" said she, smartly, as 
she put down her cup. 

"I say, you know!" muttered Joe, shaking his 
head at me in a very serious remonstrance. "Pip, 
old chap! You'll do yourself a mischief. It'll stick 
somewhere. You can't have chawed it, Pip." 

"What's the matter now?" repeated my sister, 
more sharply than before. 

"If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd 
recommend you to do it," said Joe, all aghast. 
"Manners is manners, but still your elth's your 
elth." 

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so 
she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two 
whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against 



MATURITY 223 

the wall behind him : while I sat in the corner, look- 
ing guiltily on. 

"Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the mat- 
ter," said my sister, out of breath, "you staring great 
stuck pig." 

Joe looked at her in a helpless way; then took a 
helpless bite, and looked at me again. 

"You know, Pip," said Joe, solemnly, with his 
last bite in his cheek, and speaking in a confidential 
voice, as if we two were quite alone, "you and me 
is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon 
you, any time. But such a" — he moved his chair, 
and looked about the floor between us, and then 
again at me — "such a most uncommon bolt as that I" 

"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried my sister. 

"You know, old chap," said Joe, looking at me, 
and not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, 
"I Bolted, myself, when I was your age — frequent 
■ — and as a boy I've been among a many Bolters; 
but I never see your bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's 
a mercy you ain't Bolted dead." 

My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up 
by the hair; saying nothing more than the awful 
words, "You come along and be dosed." 

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in 
those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always 
kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief 
in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the 
best of times, so much of this elixir was adminis- 



224 DICKENS ■ 

tered to me as a choice restorative, that I was con- 
scious of going about, smelling like a new fence. 
On this particular evening, the urgency of my case 
demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured 
down my throat, for my greater comfort, while 
Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot 
would be held in a boot-jack. Joe got off with half 
a pint, but was made to swallow that (much to his 
disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and medi- 
tating before the fire) , "because he had had a turn." 
Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had 
a turn afterwards, if he had had none before! 

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses 
man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that 
secret burden co-operates with another secret bur- 
den down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can 
testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge 
that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe — I never thought 
I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any 
of the housekeeping property as his — united to the 
necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread- 
and-butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about 
the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me 
out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made 
the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice 
outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who 
had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn't 
and wouldn't starve until to-morrow, but must be 
fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the 



MATURITY 225 

young man who was with so much difficulty re- 
strained from imbruing his hands in me, should 
yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mis- 
take the time, and should think himself accredited 
to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-mor- 
row! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with 
terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, 
nobody's ever did? 

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pud- 
ding for next day, with a copper-stick, from seven 
to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with the 
load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh 
of the man with the load on Ms leg), and found 
the tendency of exercise to bring the bread-and- 
butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Hap- 
pily I slipped away, and deposited that part of my 
conscience in my garret bedroom. 

"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring, 
and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner 
before being sent up to bed; "was that great guns, 
Joe?" 

"Ah!" said Joe. "There's another conwict off." 

"What does that mean, Joe?" said I. 

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon her- 
self, said snappishly, "Escaped. Escaped." Ad- 
ministering the definition like Tar-water. 

While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over 
her needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of 
saying to Joe, "What's a convict?" Joe put his 



226 DICKENS 

mouth into the forms of returning such a highly 
elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing 
of it but the single word, "Pip." 

"There was a conwict off last night," said Joe, 
aloud, "after sunset-gun. And they fired warning 
of him. And now it appears they're firing warn- 
ing of another." 

'Who's firing?" said I. 

"Drat that boy," interposed my sister, frowning 
at me over her work, "what a questioner he is. Ask 
no questions, and you'll be told no lies." 

It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to 
imply that I should be told lies by her, even if I 
did ask questions. But she never was polite, unless 
there was company. 

At this point, Joe greatly augmented my curiosity 
by taking the utmost pains to open his mouth very 
wide, and to put it into the form of a word that 
looked to me like "sulks." Therefore, I naturally 
pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the 
form of saying "her?" But Joe wouldn't hear of 
that at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, 
and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of 
it. But I could make nothing of the word. 

"Mrs. Joe," said I, as a last resort, "I should 
like to know — if you wouldn't much mind — where 
the firing comes from?" 

"Lord bless the boy!" exclaimed my sister, as 



MATURITY 227 

if she didn't quite mean that, but rather the con- 
trary. "From the Hulks I" 

"Oh-h!" said I, looking at Joe. "Hulks!" 

Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to 
say, "Well, I told you so." 

"And please what's Hulks?" said I. 

"That's the way with this boy!" exclaimed my 
sister, pointing me out with her needle and thread, 
and shaking her head at me. "Answer him one 
question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks 
are prison-ships, right 'cross th' meshes." We al- 
ways used that name for marshes in our country. 

"I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and why 
they're put there?" said I, in a general way, and 
with quiet desperation. 

It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately 
rose. "I tell you what, young fellow," said she, "I 
didn't bring you up by hand to badger people's lives 
out. It would be blame to me, and not praise, if 
I had. People are put in the Hulks because they 
murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do 
all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking 
questions. Now, you get along to bed !" 

I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, 
and, as I went up-stairs in the dark, with my head 
tingling — from Mrs. Joe's thimble having played 
the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words 
—I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience 
that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly 



228 DICKENS 

on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, 
and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe. 

Since that time, which is far enough away now, 
I have often thought that few people know what 
secrecy there is in the young, under terror. No 
matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be 
terror. I was in mortal terror of the young man 
who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal 
terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was 
in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful 
promise had been extracted; I had no hope of de- 
liverance through my all-powerful sister, who re- 
pulsed me at every turn; I am afraid to think of 
what I might have done on requirement, in the 
secrecy of my terror. 

If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine 
myself drifting down the river on a strong spring- 
tide, to the Hulks ; a ghostly pirate calling out to me 
through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet- 
station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged 
there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to 
sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at 
the first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pan- 
try. There was no doing it in the night for there 
was no getting a light by easy friction then ; to have 
got one, I must have struck it out of flint and steel, 
and have made a noise like the very pirate himself 
rattling his chains. 

As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my 



MATURITY 229 

little window was shot with grey, I got up and went 
downstairs; every board upon the way, and every 
crack in every board, calling after me, "Stop, 
thief!" and "Get up, Mrs. Joe!" In the pantry, 
which was far more abundantly supplied than usual, 
owing to the season, I was very much alarmed, by 
a hare hanging up by the heels, whom I rather 
thought I caught, when my back was half turned, 
winking. I had no time for verification, no time 
for selection, no time for anything, for I had no 
time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of 
cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied 
up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last night's 
slice), some brandy from a stone bottle (which I 
decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used for 
making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice- 
water, up in my room ; diluting the stone bottle from 
a jug in the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with 
very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork 
pie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but 
I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what 
it was that was put away so carefully in a covered 
earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was 
the pie, and I took it, in the hope that it was not in- 
tended for early use, and would not be missed for 
some time. 

There was a door in the kitchen communicating 
with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, 
and got a file from among Joe's tools, Then I put 



230 DICKENS 

the fastenings as I had found them, and opened the 
door at which I had entered when I ran home last 
night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes. 

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 

Our Mutual Friend has always been a prime fa- 
vorite with those who swear by the man of Gadshill, 
and not without cause, for it is a powerful mystery 
novel, using the device of an assumed personality, 
and containing some of the strongest scenes Dickens 
ever wrote. There is a frank element of the the- 
atrical (as so often with our author) which by no 
means detracts from the appeal, and in reading it 
a main sense of the complexity and wonder of life 
is borne in on the sympathetic recipient. Charac- 
ters like Boffin, Wegg, Venus and the Dolls' Dress- 
maker testify that at past fifty Dickens retains all 
his original gift in comic portrayal: while in Lizzie 
Hexam he has given us almost if not quite his 
finest serious woman character. Eugene Wray- 
burn, too, as leading man of the drama, has peren- 
nial attraction for the other sex. As a satire on 
polite society, the Veneerings have always seemed 
to me capital, though some will have it that they 
are out of drawing and artificial. Yet, can the 
artificiality of modish society be overdrawn? Still, 
confessedly, the writer is not quite so much at home 
here as when he is championing the ill-treated poor 



MATURITY 231 

or displaying the light and shade of the criminal 
corners of the great city he knew so well in its dens 
and moral plague spots. 

If the loves of John and his Bella seem a trifle 
uneven at this remove of time, there is still a simple 
beauty in them that melts our hearts: and humor, 
that safe antidote to sentiment that is in danger of 
becoming sentimentality, is always near by to fur- 
nish a change of mood, if the reader will. 

On the River 

In these times of ours, though concerning the 
exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of 
dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures 
in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark 
Bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge, which 
is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in. 

The figures in this boat were those of a strong 
man with ragged grizzled hair and a sun-browned 
face, and a dark girl of nineteen or twenty, suffi- 
ciently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. 
The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; 
the man, with the rudder-lines slack in his hands, 
and his hands loose in his waistband, kept an eager 
look-out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he 
could not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion 
for a sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance 
beyond a rusty boat-hook and a coil of rope, and 



232 DICKENS 

he could not be a waterman ; his boat was too crazy 
and too small to take in a cargo for delivery, and 
he could not be a lighterman or river-carrier; there 
was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked 
for something, with a most intent and searching 
gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before, 
was running down, and his eyes watched every little 
race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made 
slight headway against it, or drove stern foremost 
before it, according as he directed his daughter by 
a movement of his head. She watched his face as 
earnestly as she watched the river. But, in the in- 
tensity of her look there was a touch of dread or 
horror. 

Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the 
surface, by reason of the slime and ooze with which 
it was covered, and its sodden state, this boat and 
the two figures in it obviously were doing something 
that they often did, and were seeking what they 
often sought. Half savage as the man showed, 
with no covering on his matted head, and his brown 
arms bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, 
with the loose knot of a looser kerchief lying low 
on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard and 
whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be 
made out of the mud that begrimed his boat, still 
there was a business-like usage in his steady gaze. 
So with every little action of the girl, with every 



MATURITY 233 

turn of her wrist, perhaps most of all with her look 
of dread or horror; they were things of usage. 

"Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. 
Keep her well afore the sweep of it." 

Trusting to the girl's skill and making no use of 
the rudder, he eyed the coming tide with an ab- 
sorbed attention. So the girl eyed him. But, it 
happened now, that a slant of light from the settling 
sun glanced into the bottom of the boat, and, touch- 
ing a rotten stain there which bore some resemblance 
to the outline of a muffled human form, coloured 
it as though with diluted blood. This caught the 
girl's eye, and she shivered. 

"What ails you?' , said the man, immediately 
aware of it, though so intent on the advancing 
waters; "I see nothing afloat." 

The red light was gone, the shudder was gone, 
and his gaze, which had come back to the boat for 
a moment, travelled away again. Wheresoever the 
strong tide met with an impediment, his gaze paused 
for an instant. At every mooring chain and rope, 
at every stationary boat or barge that split the cur- 
rent into a broad arrow-head, at the offsets from the 
piers of Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the 
river steamboats as they beat the filthy water, at 
the floating logs of timber lashed together lying off 
certain wharves, his shining eyes darted a hungry 
look. After a darkening hour or so, suddenly the 



234 DICKENS 

rudder-lines tightened in his hold, and he steered 
hard towards the Surrey shore. 

Always watching his face, the girl instantly an- 
swered to the action in her sculling; presently the 
boat swung round, quivered as from a sudden jerk, 
and the upper half of the man was stretched out 
over the stern. 

The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, 
over her head and over her face, and, looking back- 
ward so that the front folds of this hood were 
turned down the river, kept the boat in that direc- 
tion going before the tide. Until now, the boat 
had barely held her own, and had hovered about 
one spot; but now, the banks changed swiftly, and 
the deepening shadows and the kindling lights of 
London Bridge were passed, and the tiers of ship- 
ping lay on either hand. 

It was not until now that the upper half of the 
man came back into the boat. His arms were wet 
and dirty, and he washed them over the side. In 
his right hand he held something, and he washed 
that in the river too. It was money. He chinked 
it once, and he blew upon it once, and he spat upon 
it once, — "for luck," he hoarsely said — before he 
put it in his pocket. 

"Lizzie!" 

The girl turned her face towards him with a 
start, and rowed in silence. Her face was very 
pale. He was a hook-nosed man, and with that 



MATURITY 235 

and his bright eyes and his ruffled head, bore a 
certain likeness to a roused bird of prey. 

"Take that thing off your face." 

She put it back. 

"Here ! and give me hold of the sculls. I'll take 
the rest of the spell." 

"No, no, father! No! I can't indeed. Father! 
— I cannot sit so near it!" 

He was moving towards her to change places, 
but her terrified expostulation stopped him and he 
resumed his seat. 

"What hurt can it do you?" 

"None, none. But I cannot bear it." 

"It's my belief you hate the sight of the very 
river." 

"I— I do not like it, father." 

"As if it wasn't your living! As if it wasn't 
meat and drink to you !" 

At these latter words the girl shivered again, and 
for a moment paused in her rowing, seeming to 
turn deadly faint. It escaped his attention, for he 
was glancing over the stern at something the boat 
had in tow. 

"How can you be so thoughtless to your best 
friend, Lizzie? The very fire that warmed you 
when you were a baby, was picked out of the river 
alongside the coal barges. The very basket that 
you slept in, the tide washed ashore. The very rock- 
ers that I put it upon to make a cradle of, I cut out 



236 DICKENS 

of a piece of wood that drifted from some ship or 
another." 

Lizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, 
and touched his lips with it, and for a moment held 
it out lovingly towards him; then, without speak- 
ing, she resumed her rowing, as another boat of 
similar appearance, though in rather better trim, 
came out from a dark place and dropped softly 
alongside. 

"In luck again, Gaffer?" said a man with a 
squinting leer, who sculled her, and who was alone. 
"I know'd you was in luck again, by your wake 
as you come down." 

"Ah!" replied the other, drily. "So you're out, 
are you?" 

"Yes, pardner." 

There was now a tender yellow moonlight on 
the river, and the new-comer, keeping half his boat's 
length astern of the other boat, looked hard at its 
track. 

"I says to myself," he went on, "directly you 
hove in view, Yonder's Gaffer, and in luck again, 
by George if he ain't! Scull it is, pardner — don't 
fret yourself — I didn't touch him." This was in an- 
swer to a quick impatient movement on the part 
of Gaffer: the speaker at the same time unshipping 
his scull on that side, and laying his hand on the 
gunwale of Gaffer's boat and holding to it. 

"He's had touches enough not to want no more, 



MATURITY 237 

as well as I make him out, Gaffer! Been a knock- 
ing about with a pretty many tides, ain't he, pard- 
ner? Such is my out-of-luck ways, you see! He 
must have passed me when he went up last time, 
for I was on the look-out below bridge here. I 
a'most think you're like the wufturs, pardner, and 
scent 'em out." 

He spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than 
one glance at Lizzie, who had pulled on her hood 
again. Both men then looked with a weird unholy 
interest at the wake of Gaffer's boat. 

"Easy does it, betwixt us. Shall I take him 
aboard, pardner?" 

"No," said the other. In so surly a tone that the 
man, after a blank stare, acknowledged it with the 
retort : 

" — Arn't been eating nothing as has disagreed 
with you, have you, pardner?" 

"Why, yes, I have," said Gaffer. "I have been 
swallowing too much of that word, Pardner. I am 
no pardner of yours." 

"Since when was you no pardner of mine, Gaffer 
Hexam, Esquire?" 

"Since you was accused of robbing a man. Ac- 
cused of robbing a live man!" said Gaffer, with 
great indignation. 

"And if I had been accused of robbing a dead 
man, Gaffer?" 

"You couldn't do it." 



238 DICKENS 

"Couldn't you, Gaffer?" 

"No. Has a dead man any use for money? Is 
it possible for a dead man to have money? What 
world does a dead man belong to? T'other world. 
What world does money belong to? This world. 
How can money be a corpse's? Can a corpse own 
it, want it, spend it, claim it, miss it? Don't try 
to go confounding the rights and wrongs of things 
in that way. But it's worthy of the sneakin spirit 
that robs a live man." 

"Ill tell you what it is—" 

"No you won't. I'll tell you what it is.- You've 
got off with a short time of it for putting your hand 
in the pocket of a sailor. Make the most of it and 
think yourself lucky, but don't think after that to 
come over me with your pardners. We have worked 
together in time past, but we work together no 
more in time present nor yet future. Let go. Cast 
off!" 

"Gaffer! If you think to get rid of me this 
way — " 

"If I don't get rid of you this way, I'll try an- 
other, and chop you over the fingers with the 
stretcher, or take a pick at your head with the boat- 
hook. Cast off! Pull you, Lizzie. Pull home, 
since you won't let your father pull." 

Lizzie shot ahead, and the other boat fell astern. 
Lizzie's father, composing himself into the easy at- 
titude of one who had asserted the high moralities 



MATURITY 239 

and taken an unassailable position, slowly lighted 
a pipe, and smoked, and took a survey of what he 
had in tow. What he had in tow, lunged itself 
at him sometimes in an awful manner when the 
boat was checked, and sometimes seemed to try to 
wrench itself away, though for the most part it 
followed submissively. A neophyte might have fan- 
cied that the ripples passing over it were dreadfully 
like faint changes of expression on a sightless face; 
but Gaffer was no neophyte and had no fancies. 

Bella Tells Her Husband a Secret 

Her letter folded, sealed, and directed, and her 
pen wiped, and her middle finger wiped, and her 
desk locked up and put away, and these transactions 
performed with an air of severe business sedateness, 
which the Complete British Housewife might have 
assumed, and certainly would not have rounded off 
and broken down in with a musical laugh, as Bella 
did : she placed her husband in his chair, and placed 
herself upon her stool. 

"Now, sir! To begin at the beginning. What 
is your name?" 

A question more decidedly rushing at the secret 
he was keeping from her could not have astounded 
him. But he kept his countenance and his secret, 
and answered, "John Rokesmith, my dear." 

"Good boy! Who gave you that name?" 



240 DICKENS 

With a returning suspicion that something might 
have betrayed him to her, he answered, interroga- 
tively, "My godfathers and my godmothers, dear 
love?" 

"Pretty good!" said Bella. "Not goodest good, 
because you hesitate about it. However, as you 
know your Catechism fairly, so far, I'll let you off 
the rest. Now, I am going to examine you out of 
my own head. John dear, why did you go back, 
this evening, to the question you once asked me be- 
fore — would I like to be rich?" 

Again, his secret ! He looked down at her as she 
looked up at him, with her hands folded on his 
knee, and it was as nearly told as ever secret was. 

Having no reply ready, he could do no better than 
embrace her. 

"In short, dear John," said Bella, "this is the topic 
of my lecture : I want nothing on earth, and I want 
you to believe it." 

"If that's all, the lecture may be considered over, 
for I do." 

"It's not all, John dear," Bella hesitated. "It's 
only Firstly. There's a dreadful Secondly, and a 
dreadful Thirdly to come — as I used to say to my- 
self in sermon-time when I was a very small-sized 
sinner at church." 

"Let them come, my dearest." 

"Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely 
certain in your innermost heart of hearts — ?" 



MATURITY 241 

"Which is not in my keeping," he rejoined. 

"No, John, but the key is. Are you absolutely 
certain that down at the bottom of that heart of 
hearts, which you have given to me as I have given 
mine to you, there is no remembrance that I was 
once your mercenary?" 

"Why, if there were no remembrance in me of 
the time you speak of," he softly asked her with his 
lips to hers, "could I love you quite as well as I do ; 
could I have in the calendar of my life the bright- 
est of its days; could I whenever I look at your 
dear face, or hear your dear voice, see and hear my 
noble champion ? It can never have been that which 
made you serious, darling?" 

"No, John, it wasn't that, and still less was it Mrs. 
Boffin, though I love her. Wait a moment, and I'll 
go on with the lecture. Give me a moment, because 
I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John, dear, 
to cry for joy." 

She did so on his neck, and, still clinging there, 
laughed a little when she said, "I think I am ready 
now for Thirdly, John." 

"I am ready for Thirdly," said John, "whatever 
it is." 

"I believe, John," pursued Bella, "that you believe 
that I believe — " 

"My dear child," cried her husband gaily, "what 
a quantity of believing!" 

"Isn't there?" said Bella, with another laugh. "I 



242 DICKENS 

never knew such a quantity! It's like verbs in an 
exercise. But I can't get on with less believing. I'll 
try again. I believe, dear John, that you believe 
that I believe that we have as much money as we 
require, and that we want for nothing." 

"It is strictly true, Bella." 

"But if our money should by any means be ren- 
dered not so much — if we had to stint ourselves a 
little in purchases that we can afford to make now — 
would you still have the same confidence in my be- 
ing quite contented, John?" 

"Precisely the same confidence, my soul." 

"Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands 
of times. And I may take it for granted, no doubt," 
with a little faltering, "that you would be quite as 
contented yourself, John. But, yes, I know I may. 
For knowing that I should be so, how surely I may 
know that you would be so; you who are so much 
stronger and firmer, and more reasonable and more 
generous than I am." 

"Hush !" said her husband, "I must not hear that. 
You are all wrong there, though otherwise as right 
as can be. And now I am brought to a little piece 
of news, my dearest, that I might have told you 
earlier in the evening. I have strong reason for 
confidently believing that we shall never be in the 
receipt of a smaller income than our present in- 
come." 



MATURITY 243 

She might have shown herself more interested in 
the intelligence ; but she had returned to the investi- 
gation of the coat-button that had engaged her at- 
tention a few hours before, and scarcely seemed to 
heed what he said. 

"And now we have got to the bottom of it at 
last," cried her husband, rallying her, "and this is 
the thing that made you serious?" 

"No, dear," said Bella, twisting the button and 
shaking her head, "it wasn't this." 

"Why then, Lord bless this little wife of mine, 
there's a Fourthly!" exclaimed John. 

"This worried me a little, and so did Secondly," 
said Bella, occupied with the button, "but it was 
quite another sort of seriousness — a much deeper 
and quieter sort of seriousness— that I spoke of, 
John dear." 

As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to 
meet it, and laid her little right hand on his eyes, 
and kept it there. 

"Do you remember, John, on the day we were 
married, Pa's speaking of the ships that might be 
sailing towards us from the unknown seas ?" 

"Perfectly, my darling!" 

"I think . . . among them . . . there is a 
ship upon the ocean . . . bringing ... to you 
and me ... a little baby, John." 



244 DICKENS 

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD 

The main characteristics of Charles Dickens were 
fully displayed in the romance upon which he was 
engaged in his fifty-ninth year when his hand sud- 
denly ceased from its labor. There is in this mellow, 
tonal composition — so far as it was written — less of 
the episodic sparkle of life, and of the unrestrained 
high spirits and zest in comic portraiture than in the 
earlier books. But there is the romantic bias which 
underlay all Dickens's view of human affairs; in 
this case, the tone is grave, rich and resonant, and 
the material melodramatic — a genre dearly loved of 
this writer; and it deals with the darker, more som- 
ber qualities of human nature; this perhaps bespeak- 
ing the veteran who had endured much, and whose 
condition was strained by work and worry. The 
liking for plot and mystery, too, is here; the artist 
is shown in the fact that the complication has evi- 
dently been most carefully wrought, proving this 
book to be at the other end of his career from the 
hit-or-miss methods of the novelist's beginning. 
Guess work is still under way over the question of 
Drood and Jasper as his murderer. This is natural 
enough and legitimate, in a story like this of plot, 
suspense and mystery, which in framework and in- 
tention it surely is. But in spite of the ingenious 
cogitations of Andrew Lang and various other 
critics upon the question whether Jasper killed his 



MATURITY 245 

nephew or the young man was to be brought back to 
confront him, it would seem the part of common 
sense, after reading Forster's brief account of the 
writing of the tale, to believe that the denouement 
involved the discovery of the murdered man and 
the detection of Jasper as the guilty one thereby; 
this being in plain accord with the plan as outlined 
by Dickens, and congruous with such portion of the 
novel as we possess. But the story is very fine in 
atmosphere; the English cathedral setting — even 
with Trollope in mind — has rarely been given with 
more of authority and charm. Nor is the typical 
humor by any means lacking ; Sapsea the auctioneer, 
the "solemn donkey,'' for one example, has the rec- 
ognizable stamp, which is also true of Honey- 
thunder, the reformer clergyman; although the ten- 
dency to exaggeration can not be denied, and in 
the case of the clerical figure, the didactic satire is 
exposed in the raw. Durdles, too, is a striking con- 
ception carried out with that peculiar effect of chiar- 
oscuro which so often makes Dickens seem a Cor- 
reggio among the writers of fiction, with Balzac a 
natural comparison. Yet one feels that if this work 
had been completed, it would have had a rounded 
perfection of architecture which should have placed 
it high on the list of fiction of a man whose latest 
years as an artist, while they tempered his outlook 
and chastened the irrepressible nature of his ex- 
travaganza, yet added to the solidity and depth of 



246 DICKENS 

his contribution. Longfellow queried if it were not 
"the most beautiful of all" his works. 

Dickens wrote short stories that have endeared 
his name to the world as truly as have his longer fic- 
tions. The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth and 
A Christmas Carol will help to hand down his name 
to a time far beyond our own; they are household 
possessions. And in the primate position is the in- 
comparable tale which has done more to domesticate 
Christmas, if I may so put it, than anything else 
from an English pen. As Charles Dudley Warner 
has reminded us, to Washington Irving falls the 
honor of having first made that holiday of homely 
import; but it remained for him who produced A 
Christmas Carol to give us the one story which, when 
we think of Christmas, inevitably comes to mind. 
Bob Crachit's feast is a permanent symbol of that 
"Good will towards men" for which Dickens stood ; 
the gentling influence of Christ's precept and exam- 
ple translated into the most familiar terms of mod- 
ern thought. This aspect of the writer's power is so 
much more clearly caught, more sharply defined in 
the tales than in the novels, where the very variety 
and complexity make for less emphasis upon one 
quality, that it is dwelt upon further in a later chap- 
ter with an illustration from A Christmas Carol. 



CHAPTER VI 
Dickens as Artist 

DICKENS, we say, was a novelist, a teller of 
stories. To see what were the distinguishing 
qualities which enabled him to win and hold such an 
audience, we must first try to understand what we 
mean by a story, and that particular kind of story, 
the novel. Through this medium this writer accom- 
plished certain great things. The critic must ex- 
plain how he did it. The burden of proof is on the 
critic, not on Dickens, who is not on trial for his life, 
since he has serenely preserved his fame to future 
generations. 

A story is such a presentation of life as to interest 
us through its interweaving of character and circum- 
stances into an organic whole; it has a beginning, 
growth and end. Always, to get a sense of story, 
there must be somewhat at least of this effect of 
growth and structure. A story, in the artistic sense, 
differs from life because it thus introduces an idea 
of completion, of rounding-out, where life itself 
fails to do so. 

And a novel, as it has come to be regarded since it 

247 



248 DICKENS 

originated in the eighteenth century, is a story of 
contemporary social life so written as to place chief 
emphasis upon the average, daily manifestations of 
life, with an especial desire to tell the truth about- 
life as it is really lived on this earth. In this em- 
phasis upon modern life, and life that is nearer, 
more sharply limned and more commonplace, the 
novel differs from the romance, where the scene is 
often far away and in the past, and where the more 
exceptional, heroic, idealistic aspects of human char- 
acter and happenings are represented. 

In respect of the fact that he was ever weaving 
life into story- form that gave it interest and charm, 
Charles Dickens was a natural great story-teller. 
His stories differed from life in that they were more 
exciting, more enthralling, than life. But he was 
also a novelist, because he took a burning interest in 
his own day and generation, and ever strove to de- 
pict life as it was lived around him, in the London he 
knew and loved : the London that was as definitely 
his inspiration as Paris was the inspiration of that 
other great novelist, Balzac. 

In a sense, too, he followed the tendency of the 
new form of fiction called the novel, in that he drew 
types of humanity mainly from the hitherto neg- 
lected and despised lower classes — the poor, the out- 
cast, and the criminal. This was common if not 
commonplace material, and meant a democratization 
of the novel, which in earlier days had been markedly 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 249 

aristocratic, preferring to find its scenes and char- 
acters among the privileged classes; the leaders of 
society. But in the handling of his types, the way 
in which he presented the lives of the "complaining 
millions of men," Dickens sharply parts company 
with the so-called realists of fiction to-day. I mean 
that while his subject-matter might be called real- 
istic, his method of presenting it was essentially ro- 
mantic. He was a writer of modern romance, who 
instinctively saw the high lights and the deep Cor- 
reggio-like shadows of human existence, who could 
not but display his material dramatically, even the- 
atrically at times. This remains one of the constant 
reasons of his wide appeal, his grip on the imagina- 
tion of the reader. In short, he had a story to tell 
always, and was able to tell it in such wise as to 
quicken one's sense of the mystery, pathos, drama 
and poetry of the vast democratic life of modern 
society. 

Apart from his tales and short stories, Dickens 
wrote sixteen major pieces of fiction, novels, as they 
would conventionally be called. When they are ex- 
amined, in sequence, it can be seen how he grew in 
his grasp on life, and in the technic of his craft, be- 
coming far more truly a novelist in the full mean- 
ing of the term when he reached the maturity of 
Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual 
Friend than in a tentative early book like Nicholas 
Nickleby. Indeed, in the Boz Sketches and Pick- 



250 DICKENS 

wick, as we saw, he began by writing fiction that 
was not novelistic at all. 

For a novelist must not only give the construc- 
tional feeling of life, as we said, but must definitely 
do certain other things : having a story to tell, he 
must tell it in this organic way, by means of charac- 
ters, either described by the author or set directly 
forth in dialogue ; and in an atmosphere furnished by 
the author's descriptive gift; the whole conveyed in 
language, whether narration, description or dialogue, 
congruous to the key chosen, and fit to hold interest 
and afford pleasure. Plenty of good novels may fail 
in some of these particulars, but for the full effect 
of the novel, all of these are demanded. And of 
them all, it is not hard to see that two are funda- 
mental : the invention that means a feeling for story, 
the gift for plot; and, perhaps most essential of all, 
the power of creating character. In this respect, 
whatever his other defects, Dickens stands forth as 
the master novelist of the race. He has created more 
characters who are known and loved of men, whose 
personalities are visualized in the reader's imagina- 
tion, and their sayings stored in affectionate memory 
and lovingly recalled, than any other writer of fic- 
tion. There are some three hundred of these mem- 
orable personages in Pickwick alone; and, it has 
been estimated, upward of fifteen hundred in his 
complete works. Shakespeare himself did not create 
anything like so many characters who are in the 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 251 

kindly keeping of human regard. Among contempo- 
raries Scott comes nearest to Dickens in this matter, 
but falls far behind him. 

Art is a representation of life by selection and 
adaptation, so we may enjoy and understand it bet- 
ter than we should without the artist. In fine, art is 
typical representation. 

How far did Dickens obey these fundamental 
principles of the art of fiction, so as to secure this 
effect? Since his day, a new theory and credo 
have arisen. With it has come an altered attitude 
toward Dickens. Thackeray has weathered the 
change better than the other novelist. The artist to- 
day is inclined to disclaim moral obligations ; he takes 
his fiction more seriously, he never concedes it to be 
"make-believe." He speaks of "a good piece of 
work," rather than a "noble lesson." He deems the 
artist should occupy a detached impersonal position 
in regard to his work, the attitude of a Jane Austen, 
a Trollope, a Howells, a Flaubert, a Guy de Mau- 
passant. To hear a Charles Reade, compelled to 
part with a favorite character, naively inquire, "How 
can I say good-by to my darling?" strikes the latter- 
day craftsman as absurd. 

Dickens, a man of the older dispensation, used the 
method of his time, and sinned in his relation to her 
characters, judged by our later standards. He frankly 
sympathized with his fictive creatures, wept and 
laughed with them, and rejoiced in their triumph, 



252 DICKENS 

sorrowed in their fall. He openly harangued and 
preached with the pulpit whack of the fist, and the 
loud tone of one addressing a big public audience. 
He pointed a moral as well as adorned a tale. And he 
did it with the unabashed front of one to whom was 
granted willingly the franchise of his method. Thus, 
he overstressed his effects, it is said. The sin of 
overemphasis is commonly imputed to him by those 
who care more for the quiet impersonality of the 
present way of fiction. There is the same difference 
between him and Mr. Howells in fiction that there 
is between Longfellow and Amy Lowell in verse. 

When it comes to character delineation, this re- 
sults in the charge that he gave us not characters but 
caricatures ; seizing on some particular trait and dis- 
torting it out of all proportion to the rounded truth 
of life. His personages, presented in this wise, seem 
less flesh and blood human beings than embodied 
eccentricities. No self-respecting workman, runs the 
argument, would or could thus maltreat the sober 
facts about human nature, for the sake of arousing 
our risibles, or arresting attention by the grotesque 
exaggerations of a too irresponsible imagination. 
This stricture is commonly made, despite the fact al- 
luded to — the vitality he has been able to impart to 
his creations. 

In answering the charge, we must first grant to a 
writer of fiction who began his work about 1836, 
the technic which his time accepted as sufficient. 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 253 

In the evolution of fictional technic, Dickens took 
the method at hand, and improved upon it, as he 
grew as an artist himself. Obviously, it is not fair 
to test him by the canons of a subsequent generation. 
And, secondly, while it is true that from sheer 
elan, and carried away by a love for extravaganza, 
he at times overstepped the bounds of sober art, it 
is quite as true that he always intended verity, be- 
lieved he was depicting it, and in the broad essen- 
tials, did tell the truth about human beings. He had 
the histrionic instinct, sometimes degenerating into 
the theatric, which nevertheless made his pictures un- 
forgettable, and etched his men and women upon the 
memories of all who read him. His methods might 
be succinctly described as artistic exaggeration for 
the purpose of carrying further; but caricature, so- 
called, is not necessarily lying ; it is enlargement for 
the sake of fun. No people on earth perhaps ever 
talked exactly as do talk Dickens's famous drolls. 
But then, what novelist since has ever made people 
talk exactly as they do in life? If he had, he would 
be guilty of artistic stupidity. No extreme realist, 
no pornographic person with whatever good will to 
reproduce all the hideousness of life, has succeeded 
in doing so, because even with such, selection and 
change are imperative, if one would escape being a 
bore and keep out of the hands of the police. It is 
all a question of relation and proportion. Dickens, 
under the impulse of his genius, went further in the 



254 DICKENS 

rearrangement of the raw material of life than is 
fashionable to-day. 

It may well be, too, that we of America in the 
twentieth century, in criticizing the unbelievable odd- 
ities of Dickens's characters, fail to realize the Lon- 
don of nearly a century ago which he looked upon; 
fail to appreciate all its differences, internal and ex- 
ternal, from our own time; and also overlook the 
author's gift for seeing the flotsam and jetsam of 
human life which is always at hand, if only the eye 
to see it be present. It might be said that Dickens 
drew attention, not to the non-existent, but to that 
which exists if we would only seek and find. But 
only one person in a generation, a century, has this 
seeing eye, this instinct for the detection of the rich 
oddments to be found in the purlieus of cities or the 
by-corners of the quiet countryside. When we ex- 
claim "impossible," confronted by a typical queer 
creature from the Gadshill workshop, we must at 
once ask ourselves : "Was it not next door to us, all 
the while?" 

There will never be unanimity among the critically 
minded with regard to such a moot-point. Since 
Dickens's day a school of critics has arisen which 
looks askance at the tendency in this writer to por- 
tray strange, bizarre folk, the estrays of humanity 
lying beyond average observation and interest. 
There is to-day, to be sure, a decided sympathy for 
the depiction of the humble, the poor, the obscure, 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 255 

the unfortunate and the vicious ; in a word, the so- 
cially submerged : and this would seem to favor the 
author of Oliver Twist. But the habit formed dur- 
ing the growth of modern fiction under the ban- 
ner of Realism to prefer not only the common and 
unclean, but the commonplace, in treating social life, 
is in distinct opposition to the method of Dickens, 
who is innocently sensational and sees no reason 
why the common should be commonplace. Dickens's 
characters are exceptional, in the sense that you do 
not seem to meet them near by, and every day. But 
are they untrue? The very condition of the accept- 
ance and success of such work is that it is based 
upon some reality. Dickens indubitably does en- 
large and make ridiculous; but he does not mis- 
represent human nature. It might further be said 
that it is not the artist's business to photograph, 
although so much latter-day work attempts it, and 
sets up that aim. The artist in fiction, for ex- 
ample, always changes life in so far as its depic- 
tion in the abbreviated formula of that art must, 
and should change it. It is always a question of 
degree. Dickens, taking advantage of a conven- 
tion of his time which has since been modified, 
changed his characters to the result of enjoyment, 
more boldly than would the artist of similar powers 
to-day. But the prevalent notion that his folk never 
were on land nor sea will not bear analysis. He took 
human beings as he saw them in the London of two 



256 DICKENS 

generations ago, and by selection, enlargement, and 
the heightening of effects which give piquancy, he 
drew such pictures as to make the scene still fresh- 
colored and vivid to our gaze. And, again using a 
simpler method than is in vogue at present, he se- 
cured an effect of saliency by showing people with 
some dominant trait, simplifying the facts concern- 
ing that complex thing, human nature, in this way. 
Thus, Pecksniff is hypocrisy, Micawber optimism, 
Uriah Heep treachery, and so on. It is no real stric- 
ture on Dickens to declare that no woman ever 
talked like Sarah Gamp. Once more let it is said, 
it is all a matter of degree. 

That sometimes Charles Dickens overstepped the 
bounds of nature in his inextinguishable zest for 
fun, his gusto in the forever humorsome spectacle 
of man, may be readily granted. Ralph Nickleby is 
a trifle too much "the heavy" of Adelphi melodrama 
to please present taste; and Quilp in Old Curiosity 
Shop is so horrible as to suggest a non-human mon- 
ster. But these are the occasional defects of the 
writer's quality, surely the exceptions. It is a curi- 
ous fact that even in so extreme an instance as 
Quilp we are furnished with the character in life 
who sat as a model for this hideous figure. After 
all, truth is stranger than fiction. It is false to gen- 
eralize from a character here and there to a theory 
of Dickens as the laughable distorter of humanity. 
And when we call him theatric, as no doubt at times 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 257 

he is, we must understand that the theater is but the 
dramatic shaped for stage purposes. Without the 
dramatic quality in this author, which now and 
again went so far as to exhibit definitely theatric 
manipulation, he would be shorn of an important 
part of his power and success. It was one of the 
incomparable gifts that made him what he is; it is 
one of the reasons he lies in Westminster Abbey. 

Another consideration: before we<an justly de- 
clare that such-and-such a character of Dickens is 
impossible, we must make sure they were not in an 
old London now passed away. Prevailingly, the 
persons of Dickens's pen seem flamboyantly pictur- 
esque, unbelievably so, perhaps. But we must re- 
member that there was more of picturesqueness 
then than now in speech, carriage, dress and de- 
portment. 

A gentleman contemporary with Emerson told 
me that he was in the habit of addressing his wife 
as "my dame." It seems impossible. The garb of 
a Disraeli or a Bulwer Lytton at a dinner party, as 
described in authentic documents, reads like a fairy 
story now. Dickens's own dress up to the end of his 
life was a survival of the buckish days of his youth 
when men disported themselves in a fashion to re- 
mind us that once upon a time the male bird wore 
the alluring plumage of courtship, not the female. 
As with decoration, so with the other picturesque 
oddities of character. Dickens's whole writing life 



258 DICKENS 

was a still hunt for the queer, relishable denotements 
of human beings, and by preference he sought and 
found them in out-of-the-way corners, among the 
derelicts, ne'er-do-wells and estrays of life. He 
had the reporter's observational eye, as well as the 
eye of the lover of mankind. Therefore, he saw 
much that was there, that common men would have 
quite missed. From his notes and letters it is per- 
fectly apparent that he believed in the validity of 
his Active folk; he even gives us a proof of the 
reality of Quilp. Several times I have met people of 
advanced years who have assured me they have seen 
the original of this or that character from Dickens's 
gallery. Our own inability to note the wonderful 
variety of creatures made by God to walk this earth 
may well account in some measure for the sceptical 
attitude toward the novelist's creative efforts to 
paint humanity. Personally, I am of the opinion 
that at least a part of the critical attitude which de- 
clares Dickens's characters to be caricatures in the 
opprobrious meaning of the word, is based upon the 
impression derived unconsciously from the novel- 
ist's illustrators. Cruikshank not only made Dick- 
ens's comic folk comic in pictured portrayal, but he 
distorted the serious characters as well. This fact 
is significantly illuminated by passages in Forster 
where we find the author expressing dissatisfaction 
and indignation at certain of the drawings as mis- 
representative and requesting more than once that 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 259 

they be done over again. I have no doubt, for one, 
that Dickens has suffered in this way at the hands of 
the artists. Americans like Thomas Nast, Jessie 
Wilcox Smith and Charles Dana Gibson have done 
tardy justice to our author in this respect. 

It may also be remarked with regard to Dickens's 
method of character portrayal, as well as that of 
other novelists of the early and mid-Victorian pe- 
riod, that they differ as a group from the novelists 
of our day in one important respect and one natural 
in the evolution of the art of fiction; a point al- 
ready hinted that may bear dilation. In depicting- 
human beings, Dickens emphasized, as did his con- 
temporaries, the cardinal traits and tendencies of 
humanity. He showed the reactions to love, hate, 
greed, jealousy and ambition; he exhibited the 
main interests and passions of Man. He showed 
humanity in its agreements with respect to these 
mighty, overmastering appeals. In sharp contrast, 
the later novelists have come to portray not the 
agreements so much as the subtle differentiations 
that mark off the individual from the mass. The 
psychology in the fiction of James, Bennett, Gals- 
worthy, Conrad, Herrick and Howells, Mrs. De- 
land and Mrs. Wharton is of this kind. Psycho- 
analysis is a new science. Doubtless, this is a more 
penetrating study of men and women, a psychology 
that dives to the depths instead of remaining nearer 
the surface. It is genuine achievement, this later 



260 DICKENS 

work, a valuable contribution, but the earlier one 
had to come first, and is a broader and more basal 
thing to do. The present method means often work- 
ing with a fine brush in a fashion at times meticu- 
lous. It is portraiture on ivory. Dickens and his 
mates painted with a coarser brush and threw in 
their effects with sweeping strokes. 

It is wise to accept both methods, be thankful 
for each, and realize that the early broad way of 
presenting humanity had to precede the subtler lat- 
ter way. The technic of fiction is a development, 
and the difference between Dickens and Henry 
James is one of period as well as of personality. 
It may be readily granted that Dickens's psychology 
is, in this sense, simple and old-fashioned, while 
still insisting that his gift for characterization is 
unique. An illustration of the simplicity of this 
procedure can be found in his habit of putting set 
phrases in the mouths of his creatures; a sort of 
linguistic tag by which to identify them. Our af- 
fectionate remembrance of Dickens's character is 
involved with their typical sayings: we "wait for 
something to turn up" with Micawber, are "willin' " 
with Barkis, and "make a note of" with Captain 
Cuttle, and repeat with delight the sapient advice of 
the elder Weller, "beware of vidders." Would we 
dispense with these denotements because they are a 
rather obvious device of characterization? I ven- 
ture to think not. In the more objectionable trick 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 261 

of giving a character a name descriptive of some 
personal quality, Dickens is no greater a sinner than 
Thackeray, whom Mr. Howells, with this and other 
departures from truth in mind, calls a "caricaturist." 
To the latter-day realist, with Austen and Trollope 
for their gods, both the Victorian Masters are cul- 
pable in these respects. It is best to say, "other 
times, other customs." After all restrictions are 
made, the power and the glory remain. 

And the compelling force back of this power of 
Dickens is more than the vis comica which is uni- 
versally conceded to be his. It is an immense gusto 
which means not only a kind of boyish enjoyment 
of life as "great larks," but a hearty sympathy 
with the human case, and especially with the case 
of the poor and humble, with all who are made 
wretched by social injustice; this, together with the 
moral indignation begotten by such feelings. In 
fact, two things, not one, make Dickens vital to-day 
in a time when, with the development of the art of 
fiction, so much in him begins to date from an ear- 
lier generation. One is the inextinguishable high 
spirits, that feeling of good fellowship which is 
entirely independent of period and vogue and fash- 
ion ; the other, that deeper and wider feeling which 
might be described as an expression of social re- 
volt. The former will always be attractive, since 
it is psychic self-preservation to savor the satisfac- 
tions of human contact. And the latter marks 



262 DIGKENS 

Dickens as a pioneer in the sentiment which has 
so rapidly gained headway for a generation that 
it seems the dominant trend of thought in the early 
twentieth century. Whatever reservations we may 
put upon his work as time goes on, and the selective 
instinct of criticism is more sternly applied to this 
writer, as to all writers who recede into the past, 
it is plain that he will always be seen as central in 
his day and generation in sympathetically stating 
the case of the social outcast and the oppressed 
poor. To a less degree, contemporaries like Reade 
and Kingsley are part of the tendency. Indeed, it 
began in the preceding century. But Dickens's power 
and vogue brought this form of altruistic expres- 
sion in letters to flowering in the days when he was 
publishing Nicholas Nickl,eby and Oliver Twist. 
Therefore, sound-hearted people to-day, while cor- 
recting the picture here and there in details, can not 
but recognize the noble purpose and the essential 
truth of the arraignment of society made by a nov- 
elist whose function, superficially viewed, seemed 
to be that of provoking deep-lunged laughter. Dick- 
ens's social sympathy harmonizes him with our day, 
if his technic does not, and such artistry as he learned 
to command was ever at the service of his social 
pleading. This may be illustrated more particularly 
in the next chapter. 

It is also often claimed, in reading him to-day, 
that Dickens's pathos is mawkish and self-conscious; 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 263 

that it does not possess the continence of genuine 
art. When he has to kill Little Nell in Old Curi- 
osity Shop, he fairly wallows in his grief, and to 
our taste to-day this is offensive. Contempora- 
ries like Lord Jeffrey and Lord Macaulay, to be 
sure, did not object, and wept over the scene as 
they read it by the evening lamp. But it does not 
ring true at the present time to some. It would 
be unfair, however, to take this famous passage 
and generalize from it. There are plenty of other 
scenes in Dickens's books where the tenderness is 
unforced and the tears spontaneous, when the pres- 
ent-day tests are applied: the death of Paul Dom- 
bey, for example, or David's runaway experience 
(quoted in this book), or the passing of Smike, or 
of Magwitch. The author felt these scenes himself 
very deeply, and his touch is often as sure in them 
as it is when he is awakening our mirth by farce 
comedy, or better, making us smile tremulously over 
some moment of mingled pathos and glee, as in the 
Copper field chapter just referred to. Nor should 
it be overlooked, in considering this matter of 
Dickens's emotional appeal, that when he began to 
write, emotional expression was far freer in life 
than it is to-day. This is simply a fact of social 
history. Men wept without shame, where women 
weep now. The further back we go, the truer this 
is. Nicholas Nickleby bursts into tears at the slight- 
est provocation, and does not lose caste with author 



264 DICKENS 

or contemporary audience ; I would go still further 
and say that he cries as copiously as his mother, 
Mrs. Nickleby, were she not the moistest lady in 
English fiction. If we turn to the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and read Mackensie's Man of Feeling, to 
say nothing of Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, 
we shall get more light upon the point. It was good 
form in the elder days to show feeling freely; the 
red Indian repression of the present had not become 
fashionable. People like the French and Italians 
to-day, with their ready giving way to the public 
expression of emotion, teach us how it was with the 
Anglo-Saxon in the past. Dickens, therefore, must 
in this respect be judged in his time. 

A limitation has also been put upon Dickens's 
power of portrayal in the remark that he could not 
draw a gentleman. That he was happiest and most 
at home in presenting the lower and middle classes 
can instantly be conceded. It is a limitation of ex- 
cellence. Plenty of novelists have been able to draw 
gentility ; nobody has equaled Dickens with the hum- 
ble, the poor and the unfortunate. Yet, this too 
can be easily exaggerated. Pickwick, judged by the 
standards of his day, is a gentleman; so is Sir 
Leicester Dedlock, and poor Newman Noggs, 
shabby and bibulous though he be. The Veneer- 
ings do not seem to me overdrawn, by any means. 
It is true that Dickens was less sympathetic in de- 
picting the upper classes, avoided them compara- 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 265 

tively, and gives the effect of being a little off his 
ground when he attempts them. It may be granted 
that he did not know the field so well as Thackeray. 
But too much can be made of this as a defect. There 
was a certain gentlehood in Dickens's nature which 
enabled him to perceive and reproduce typical per- 
sons of the gentle and noble class in so far as that 
class illustrates such traits. 

Dickens's style has come in for criticism, especially 
when a direct comparison is made with Thackeray. 
Andrew Lang has said a wise as well as witty word 
touching the difference between these two great 
writers, and the sensible attitude toward them. In 
his Letters to Dead Authors, addressing Dickens, 
he asks: "Why should there be any partisanship 
in the matter: and why, having two such good 
things as your novels, and those of your contem- 
porary, should we not be silently happy in the pos- 
session?" And he philosophically adds: "Well, 
men are made so, and must needs fight and argue 
over their taste in enjoyment." That Dickens was a 
careless writer in the sense that he wrote at times 
too hastily, and without the proper labor of the file 
(as we have already noted) can be granted; so, 
for that matter, was Thackeray. The inimitable, 
easy, unobtrusive idiom and synthetic melody of the 
other at his best, is not attained by Dickens; this 
is beyond question. Yet Charles Dickens was a 
noble master of English speech; remarkable in dia-< 



266 DICKENS 

logue, description or narration. His English was 
idiomatic, resonant, resourceful, and rose to real 
heights of eloquence when occasion demanded, and 
especially was it adequate to the varied call of his 
humorous inspiration. For force and fitness of 
dialogue, in the scenes which have made him the 
figure he is, he has not been approached by any other 
wielder of an English pen. His faults can easily 
be pointed out in these days of negative and literary 
Don'ts; his virtues are still the despair of lesser 
writers. Andrew Lang calls the fifth chapter of 
Little Dorrit, which describes the Father of the 
Marshalsea, "magnificent ,, ; I should not hesitate 
to apply the same adjective to the fifty-fifth of 
Copperfield, telling of David's return to Yarmouth 
and the great storm which washed up on shore 
the dead bodies of Ham and Steerforth. 'This can 
be said without overlooking the melodramatic tend- 
ency of some of the descriptions, the rhythmic repe- 
tends which come dangerously near to blank verse, 
and the somewhat monotonous flow of certain pas- 
sages of highly emotionalized writing. As Steven- 
son has pointed out with respect to Macaulay, the 
tunes played by Dickens are less subtle and complex 
than those of later artists. There is a tendency, one 
might almost call it a mannerism, to condense the 
method of stage business in opening descriptions, 
such as that which begins Bleak Hoiise. But all 
reservations made, a virile and remarkable writer 



DICKENS AS ARTIST 267 

remains ; not a stylist as the brothers Goncourt were 
stylists — men who tortured themselves over a 
phrase; but a man whose instrument was sufficient 
for the great things he did with it, and in the larger 
implication of the word, one who commanded style, 
— in his case, the style being most emphatically the 
man. 

And after all allowances for haste and careless- 
ness are made, and not forgetting that Dickens 
wrote to Forster with regard to changing one of 
his characters when the story was under way, "Do 
you think it could be done without making the peo- 
ple angry?", there can be no question that he 
wrought manfully to perfect himself in the art of 
fiction, and — a point commonly overlooked in the 
study of Dickens — that he gained notably in the 
architectonics of the art during the generation in 
which he was actively engaged in his profession. 
I have made this claim in the discussion of his work, 
viewed in its development, and insisted that the art 
of Oliver Twist, as a sample of story-telling, is 
by far inferior to the art of Great Expectations. 
It is my conviction that, in the end, fuller justice 
will be done Dickens in conceding his improvement 
in artistry, while his comic genius, which will never 
be denied, will be less exclusively borne down upon. 
His sense of story was always strong: before his 
career as a practitioner was over, he had learned 
to tell a story as he was unable to when he began 



268 DICKENS 

the sketch- work of Boz or the broad surface ef- 
fect of Pickzuick. It is the difference between the 
natural raconteur and the conscious manipulator of 
fictional material. 

Let it be said again here, for the sake of cumu- 
lative effect, that judged by the severe tests which 
we now apply to all fiction, Dickens became before 
he died a craftsman to be respected and admired for 
the forthright way in which he handled his tools and 
material. If those tools were not so varied as may 
be found in the kit of a twentieth century worker, 
and the work turned out to be less delicate there- 
for, this is but the defect of his quality, and the 
limitation of his time, this last an influence from 
which a Shakespeare did not escape. Dickens must 
be given due honor for what he did, considering the 
conditions in which he did it. 



CHAPTER VII 
Dickens as Reformer 

TO MAKE the world better by his work, while 
amusing it, to be a reformer without being dull 
and repellently didactic, that is the great accomplish- 
ment of Charles Dickens. He began to write when 
the nineteenth century was but a third over, and 
he looked out upon an England almost inconceivably 
different from, inferior to, that land at present, in 
all that goes to make the sum-total called civiliza- 
tion. Dickens had only just attained his majority 
when slavery was abolished there, and child labor 
reduced from eighteen to twelve hours a day. Not 
until he was twenty-five did ships cross the Atlantic 
by steam, or was there a Department of Public Ed- 
ucation. While he was in the twenties, the Corn 
Law fight was under way, and the Chartist reform 
being agitated. He was twenty-seven when the 
penny-post system, with its quietus on the leisurely 
old epistolary correspondence, was introduced; and 
thirty-two when the beginnings of prison reform 
were to be noted. He was still a young man of but 
thirty-five in the year when the telegraph first 

269 



270 DICKENS 

flashed messages across the land. And it was not 
until he had reached manhood that the trades unions 
were given power and the first steam railway was 
seen. The social contrasts between then and now, 
too, were such as to make the England of Dickens's 
day a vastly other world than ours. Instead of ho- 
tels, the quaint inns, which play so attractive a part 
in his books ; coaches, packets and post-chaises where 
are now the automobile and the airplane. Men with 
their knee breeches, frilled shirts and colored waist- 
coats were far more picturesque than in the com- 
paratively sober garb of the present. The social 
habits were more boisterous, and free mannered; 
eating and drinking, as every reader of Dickens 
becomes aware, were freer, coarser than is true of 
table habits to-day. Emotionalism was more ex- 
pansive and unrestrained, men wept where now they 
leave tears to women. It was in all ways, external 
and internal, an earlier, less enlightened, and more 
brutal, flamboyant age. Above all, must it be real- 
ized that the cleavage of caste, and the social dis- 
tinctions that separated class from class, and the 
masses from the classes, obtained to a degree and 
definiteness that serve to throw the democracy of 
Dickens into all the higher relief. Looking out as 
boy and young man upon such a social scene, Dick- 
ens began at once, in Pickwick, Nicholas Nickleby 
and Oliver Twist, to show his hand as a satirist, to 
excoriate abuses, and to plead with a sympathy 



DICKENS AS REFORMER 271 

that was fiery hot and intensely sincere for better 
conditions : he pilloried the evil conductment of the 
schools, first and foremost the notorious Dotheboys 
Academy in Nicholas Nickleby, and before he was 
finished, had shown the world well over twenty 
schools, good or bad, and mostly bad, with the pur- 
pose and result of making impossible the old false 
system which conceived of the child as a sort of 
little human hopper into which facts, so deified by 
Mr. Gradgrind in Hard Times, could be thrown, 
and ground out again at call, with penalty, pain and 
hate as the by-products. From Squeers in his first 
novel to Miss Twinkleton in The Mystery of Edwin 
Brood, Dickens was always about his business of 
introducing modern ideals of education where be- 
fore the standards and tests were harshly utilitarian 
and inhuman. And so fundamental was his con- 
tribution to child culture before the days of the 
kindergarten, that we find educators like the To- 
ronto expert, James L. Hughes, and the late Wil- 
liam T. Harris declaring that no man of English 
race has done so much for the right understand- 
ing of child psychology as this same teller of 
stories. Dickens saw and said in a way to make 
it carry home, that feeling is the basis of all fruit- 
ful thought; he recognized that "it is a crime to 
rob the child of its childhood"; and hence, in the 
language of Doctor Harris, "stands apart and 
alone as one of the most potent influences of social 



272 DICKENS 

reform in the nineteenth century, and therefore de- 
serves to be read and studied by all who have to 
do with schools and by all parents everywhere in 
our day and generation." "No other writer," says 
Mr. Hughes in his useful book on Dickens as an 
Educator, "has attacked so many phases of wrong 
training, unjust treatment, and ill usage of child- 
hood." With such facts before us, it would be 
utterly a one-sided view of our author to ignore his 
social contribution in this respect, while bearing 
down on his familiar power to enthrall with story 
or delight by character depiction. There need be 
no arbitrary division into story maker and moral- 
ist; it is the blend of the two, so that amusement 
contains instruction, and instruction is made palata- 
ble by amusement, that constitutes the real attrac- 
tion of Dickens. 

By no means does he invariably expose the vicious 
elements and principles of these earlier schools at 
a time when England's educational system, with its 
clash of private and public methods, and its tyranny 
of religious interference was a welter and a chaos. 
The gentle Dr. Strong of Copper field, for example, 
gives a fine picture of what education will always 
be when it is in relation to genuine high intention 
and the magic of a true character. But prevail- 
ingly, and with the instinct of a born reformer 
guiding him, Dickens dealt his sledge-hammer blows 
against the Gradgrinds and Squeerses of the educa- 



DICKENS AS REFORMER 273 

tional world, in the pictures he drew of no less than 
eight and twenty schools. 

But we must not stop with the schools, in enumer- 
ating the reformatory work of this master of hu- 
manity. The prisons, and poor houses, the law 
courts, and the industrial abuses of the day, repre- 
sented by the too familiar phrase, labor vs. capital, 
were all of them attacked and exposed by his pen. 
Who will ever forget the charitable institution in 
which that unctuous rascal, Mr. Bumble, is a central 
figure ; or Sargeant Magistrate Fang, as a picture of 
a ferociously cruel officer in a municipal court; or 
poor little Miss Flite in Bleak House, with her un- 
consciously hopeless case against Chancery; or the 
vivid sketch in Little Dorrit of that Marshalsea, 
the debtor's prison visited by Charles Dickens the 
boy because his father, so superbly described as 
the Father of the Marshalsea, was there incarcer- 
ated; or the highly hilarious arraignment of The 
Circumlocutionary Office in the same novel, a per- 
manent satire on the red tape of officialdom, or yet 
again, the great canvas, somber and painted in black 
and red, of the struggle of people against crown in 
The Tale of Two Cities. 

And it is a happy thing concerning all these fa- 
mous diatribes, that we read them primarily as 
literature, for their power and picturesqueness ; yet 
for that very reason, the lesson sinks in, and is per- 
manent. 



274 DICKENS 

Dickens lent all the might of his influence with 
his own generation to the reiterant idea that a 
child is a tender plant needing, for proper cultiva- 
tion and that chance for happiness which is a human 
right, kindly understanding and the loving tendence 
which recognizes personality as something precious 
and therefore to be respected and cherished. He 
was continually satirizing the older view, embod- 
ied in Mr. Gradgrind of doleful memory, wherein 
the impartation of "facts" was the sole aim, and 
browbeating discipline the sole way of inculcation. 
The noteworthy opening scene of Hard Times, al- 
ready quoted, with Mr. Gradgrind in the chair, 
shows as well as anything Dickens has left us, his 
sense of the outrage of the wretched old-time 
method. 

The full force of this satire is the better appre- 
ciated when it is realized that Gradgrind, who 
stands as sponsor for such a conception of the child 
as a sort of little human hopper into which to throw 
facts, to be ground out by the educational mill and 
the result dubbed "education," when he applies this 
principle to his own household, makes a terrible 
wreck of his domestic happiness. 

It is so throughout Dickens's delineation of child- 
hood; the child in the home, in the institutional en- 
vironment, in the school, private or public, in the 
streets, in the festering slums and waste places of 
the city; wherever it breathes, or tries to breathe, 



DICKENS AS REFORMER 275 

there is this big-hearted lover and observer directing 
our gaze, often through a mist of tender tears, but 
often too as our smiles come sweetly because of 
many a revelation of the loveliness and innocence 
and purity of these human flowers, so that we may 
truly see and mark and learn to be wise when we 
come to handling the most delicate, important and 
far-reaching of all social questions: the best up- 
bringing of the young who are to become, for better 
or worse, the future citizens of the state. 

Dickens does not prefer to give us prosperous 
childhood; the little ones who, favorably situated, 
are guarded and loved and dowered with the gifts 
of good fortune. No, most naturally is his sym- 
pathy with the poor and lowly, his keen eye pene- 
trates into dark and sordid corners where these tiny 
withered blossoms are thrown on some dunghill to 
die. These he sees and succors with a royal all- 
embracing fellow feeling; one after the other, he 
picks them up and cherishes them in his bosom 
with that divine gesture of compassion which we 
are fain to attribute to the Shepard of all the sheep ; 
yes, all of them, though lame and lost, at his call, 
troop to where Love is: 

"The po' lost sheep of the sheep for, 
They all come gadderin' in." 

Not the drudge Smike only, product of the 
Squeers's sort of educational Horror, but Little Jo 



276 DICKENS 

as well, to whom the London streets proved a cruel 
stepmother, and Tiny Tim, who, cripple though he 
was, was happy in a wonderful home love; and 
David, whom the awful Murdstones did their best 
to kill, and nearly succeeded ; and the Marchioness, 
the dear wee slavey who always had a cold from 
damp living, and who so adored Dick Swiveller 
when he was nice to her; and little Dombey, who 
was killed by the forcing process of Dr. Blimber; 
and Jenny Wren, the Dolls' Dressmaker, who 
smelled flowers when they were not there; and 
Sophy, adoptive daughter of Dr. Marigold, re- 
claimed to life through the love of a showman; 
and Pip, too, with his touching affection for dear 
Joe Gargery, another child, albeit of man's estate; 
yes, and those other children of the mind rather 
than of the body, Mr. Dick and Miss Flite and 
Baniaby Rudge — these and a sweet host more, 
surely no other pen has done such service for child- 
hood. What a company they are to fill the roomy 
corridors of memory and make it a perfumed and 
pleasant place! 

And from this vast and varied portrait gallery, 
as we examine it, we see that Dickens is always 
considering the education of the child. After the 
pictures he drew of the abuse of childhood by the 
educational system, or lack of it, which made the 
school an intellectual hothouse where an unnatural 
forcing process was in operation, it became impos- 



DICKENS AS REFORMER 277 

sible for society any longer to tolerate such ideals 
and methods; hence, in our own day, looking back 
on Dickens's work, we see him as the introducer on 
English soil of the kindergarten reform, and award 
him his place of honor due as a significant pedagogic 
leader. The fact that he was a novelist primarily 
affording the world amusement by his pictures and 
personages, must not blind us to the seriousness of 
the contribution. 

Definitely did he fight certain notions of his day 
concerning the young. One such was the doctrine 
of the total depravity of the child, as such ; which 
I take to be part of the charming Puritan assump- 
tion that we are all lost souls; but which, in any 
case, has horrid results in its practical working. 
Another notion he opposed was the deification of 
the cramming process as against the slow, quiet, 
enjoyable absorption of a subject which alone bears 
fruit of character and accomplishment. 

Dickens also was an enemy of that overemphasis 
upon the intellect in education which ignores the 
palpable fact that it is the chief business of peda- 
gogues to clarify and purify and make efficient the 
emotions, since the heart and soul play, always have 
played and always will, the leading role in the de- 
velopment of all human beings. Our age, with its 
god of scientific knowledge, is a little in danger of 
forgetting this truth, so that Dickens's attitude 
comes with special meaning to us. 



278 DICKENS 

Again, Dickens saw and said that you never can 
substitute methodology for man in any scheme of 
education which is vital ; that a poor teacher, forti- 
fied with whatever aids in the way of the latest 
method tricks, remains a poor teacher ; whereas, the 
reason why Thomas Arnold of Rugby was a great 
teacher was not because he had a better method, 
but for the sole and sufficient reason that he was 
Arnold of Rugby. The trouble with the new-fan- 
gled keys to child psychology is that they are a 
tremendously convenient barrier behind which the 
weak sisters of the profession may hide their lack 
of sympathy, of magnetism, of personality. You 
can not with success substitute an abstract principle 
for a personality in education or anything else. 
Dickens knew it. 

And this story-teller who was yet a teacher (we 
are now beginning to teach through story-telling), 
saw that to do the child justice you must develop 
its self-activity, and not bear down on merely an 
imitation. Bitzer was purely imitative when he 
defined a horse. Imitation turns out that sickening 
parrot-like unthinking use of words and of memory 
which, if persisted in, will put a successful quietus 
on any real exercise of the reasoning faculty. 

And love overbrooded all these principles 
preached by Dickens, as the pervasive spirit, the 
motor force, and the sure solution of the problem. 



DICKENS AS REFORMER 279 

I have more to say of this in the next chapter, with 
the Christmas tales particularly in mind. 

But, as I have implied, in a sense that is more than 
pedagogic or specifically of the period of schooling 
and of adolescence, Dickens was a mighty teacher 
of mankind. He could not help but teach, because 
he loved fellow man, had the instinct of the re- 
former, yearned to set right the crooked ways of 
the world, and never wearied of well-doing in such 
work. His lessons are not confined to or drawn 
from children. The world was his school, not all 
England alone; and surely he was thinking of his 
great audience of grown-ups, not of the school in 
the literal sense, when he wrote so touchingly : 

"When the lessons and tasks are all ended, 
And Death says, the school is dismissed, 

May the little ones gather around me, 
To bid me, Good night, and be kissed." 

All who know their Dickens, are familiar with the 
peculiar relation he bore to his host of readers; a re- 
lation close, personal, warm; on his side there was 
always a recognition of obligation to his readers; 
on their side, an allegiance, a sense of personal 
friendship, such as to-day strikes one perhaps as 
a theme for amusement. But the point I would 
make here is that it meant an extension of the teach- 



280 DICKENS 

er's function and role, and that in a way this author 
preferred all the perils of didacticism, to the austere 
impersonal aloofness of the artist of a later genera- 
tion. 

Never did Charles Dickens tire of drawing types 
that stood, either negatively by way of warning, or 
affirmatively by way of enheartening example, for 
some important trait of character or principle of 
life. Ralph Nickleby displays for us the aw fulness 
of miserliness and cold-hearted killing of human af- 
fection. Micawber suggests that faith in the mor- 
row is a helpful attitude; Mark Tapley, another 
optimist, shows us the value of a smile before the 
days of Christian science. Pecksniff's hypocrisy is 
sure to ride to a fall, while Tom Pinch, in every re- 
spect his antithesis, implies that, appearances to the 
contrary, the meek shall inherit the earth. Sin and 
crime are ugly in the persons of Fagin and Bill 
Sikes, not because it is the proper Sunday-school 
treatment, but honestly to express the writer's wish 
to strip the law breaker of a meretricious, romantic 
"property" cloak in which he had been becomingly 
draped, and show him in his naked repulsiveness. 
Magwitch reminds us of the possibility of true con- 
version, however unpromising from the start, and 
along with it, the potency of a child's influence. And 
in the important characters of both Martin Chuzzle- 
wit and The Mystery of Edwin Drood the avenging 
terrors of an evil conscience are brought home to us 



DICKENS AS REFORMER 281 

with such melodramatic realism, if a phrase so syn- 
thetic may be permitted, that the reader shrinks 
from the acts that made such a state of mind possi- 
ble. And so with a hundred other illustrations. 

That he ran the risk — and sometimes succumbed 
to it — of creating types and "humors," instead of 
realizable flesh and blood creatures is quite aside 
from the question here ; which is that Dickens could 
not escape his nature — no man has yet lifted himself 
by his boot-straps — and refrain from moralizing life. 
It was, if you will, his glory and his weakness. But 
it furnished the powder for the field guns of his mes- 
sage; and because of it the message carried further 
and its detonations are still sounding in the ears of 
a younger generation. No study of Charles Dick- 
ens as story-teller and as artist of fiction can get 
away from this ground-plan of the man regarded in 
his totality : he had to teach just as truly as he had 
to create, and give us joy, and make us laugh and 
our hearts grow tender in sympathy for distress and 
suffering. If he were less an artist because more a 
preacher and teacher, well and good ; that is matter 
for debate. But it were absurd, for the sake of 
proving him a greater artist, to deny that his whole 
nature was involved in the attempt, both self-con- 
scious and instinctive, to leave the world better by 
his words and work. He stands or falls by that test. 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Crier Up of Loving Kindness 

THERE is a certain influence and effect of 
Dickens which includes all that has been shown 
of him as humanitarian and democrat and friend of 
fellow man, yet broadens out into something higher 
and holier than them all. It is the spirit that teaches 
Peace on earth, good will to men ; it is an emanation 
of loving kindness that looks to Christ as the great 
Exemplar, in no way of set theology nor dogmatized 
ethics, but simply as the divine elder brother who 
points the path up which all aspiring mortals must 
climb, if they would learn the lesson of Love trans- 
lated into terms of living. It is not amiss to say, 
with this in mind, that Dickens is most potent, at 
his very best and most typical, in those writings 
where he outbreathes this spirit and stands for this 
principle of loving kindness ; not so much attacking 
specific social abuses, as making the teachings of 
Jesus practical, modern and pervasive. Not at all 
would I imply that this spirit of practical Chris- 
tianity, as it might be called, is absent from his work 
at large ; on the contrary, it permeates it, from Pick* 

282 



CRIER UP OF LOVING KINDNESS 283 

wick Papers to the end. The social sympathy in 
Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby, 
Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, and others yet, is 
too obvious to need demonstration. But the point is, 
that in the novels this sympathy generally centers 
and finds its reason for activity in some definite so- 
cial wrong; the stupid and cruel management of 
some public machinery such as the law court, the 
workhouse, the prison or the school. Whereas, in 
the Christmas stories, we are presented with those 
broad, elemental universal human relations which 
cohere in the home and are not subject to legisla- 
tive betterment, but rather are sensitive to "every 
word that cometh from the mouth of the Father." 
It is life simplified, life clarified, life reduced to its 
few essentials, that we get in the Tales. And it is 
this which gives them their distinction, and makes 
them so illustrative of their writer in his special gift. 
The Christmas tales are paramount among his 
stories in performing this service. Christmas, so 
markedly Christ's holiday, is a fit time in which to 
display virtues which belong to the soul of the Chris- 
tian religion in its widest application and most un- 
denominational estate ; which, indeed, belong to and 
are the essence of all true religion, Christian or 
other. In The Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes, 
and finest and most famous of them all, The Christ- 
mas Carol, we get this great writer unconsciously 
speaking his deepest message; in such work he 



284 DICKENS 

epitomizes a noble mood and instinct of the British 
people; he speaks not for himself alone, but for his 
race. The Christmas Carol is safe to endure not 
because it is a remarkable literary feat so much as 
because it is permanently expressive of a sentiment 
and a relation which the Anglo-Saxon recognizes 
and applauds; the sentiment of innocent and kindly 
good cheer, and the relation of harmony between 
all men and between man and his Maker. In such 
depictions, Dickens socializes religion; a meal be- 
comes a sort of social sacrament for the reason that 
the virtues of gentleness, kindness and happiness 
gather about the board spread with Christmas good 
cheer. Eating and drinking, of which there is so 
much in all his books — to the distaste of some 
squeamish folk who can not see the symbol for the 
material details that embody it — are sublimated into 
a suggestion that some day, in God's good time, 
life will be universally kindly and generous and 
sweet, even as now, occasionally, at a Christmas 
dinner, human beings expand, and grow gentle and 
take on the image of One who declared, "I say unto 
you, little children, that you love one another." 

Easily first, as I said, is The Christmas Carol. 
The old curmudgeon Scrooge learns through the 
superhuman agency of the ghosts or kindly spirits 
who stand for conscience and furnish the enjoyable 
fairy-lore atmosphere that makes the story loved 
of all young folk, that he is dead, not alive, until 



CRIER UP OF LOVING KINDNESS 285 

his ear becomes attuned to that "still sad music of 
humanity" which calls upon all who hear it to join 
the greatest confraternity in the world : "the union 
of all who love in the service of all who suffer." 
Scrooge does learn the lesson, and hence we leave 
him a quickened spirit; and our own spirits are 
also quickened as we thus through imaginative 
pleasure experience the truths of the life spiritual. 
Doubtless, it is because of this peculiar service that 
Thackeray called this story "a public benefit." It 
is because Dickens wrote it and other things like 
it in influence, that his nation overruled his private 
wishes, and he sleeps in Westminster. The scene 
of Bob Cratchit's dinner, which follows, is in every 
way an illustration of this effect of Dickens, which 
seems to me deepest, most lasting, most represent- 
edly what he stood for. It is not devoid of his 
humor, for if it were, it could hardly be typical; 
but it bases in the grave emotions and the humor 
itself is less boisterous, more mellow, than that of 
other moods. And it is hall-marked by the Mr. 
Greatheart we find in Charles Dickens to explain 
his persistent appeal, and the love and honor he 
retains from all classes and conditions of mankind. 

The Cratchits Eat Their Christmas Dinner 

"What has ever got your precious father, then?" 
said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim ? 



286 DICKENS 

And Martha warn't as late last Christmas day by 
half an hour!" 

"Here's Martha, mother," said a girl, appearing 
as she spoke. 

"Here's Martha, mother," cried the two young 
Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Mar- 
tha!" 

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late 
you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen 
times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her 
with officious zeal. 

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," 
replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morn- 
ing, mother." 

"Well, never mind, so long as you are come," 
said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, 
and have a warm, Lord bless ye !" 

"No, no, there's father coming," cried the two 
young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. 
"Hide, Martha, hide !" 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, 
the father, with at least three feet of comforter, 
exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; 
and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed 
to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoul- 
der. Alas, for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, 
and had his limbs supported by an iron frame. 

"Why, where's our Martha ?" cried Bob Cratchit, 
looking round. 



CRIER UP OF LOVING KINDNESS 287 

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"Not coming !" said Bob, with a sudden declen- 
sion in his high spirits ; for he had been Tim's blood 
horse all the way from church, and had come home 
rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas Day!" 

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it 
were only a joke ; so she came out prematurely from 
behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while 
the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim and bore 
him off into the wash house, that he might hear the 
pudding singing in the copper. 

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. 
Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob upon his cre- 
dulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his 
heart's content. 

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Some- 
how, he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, 
and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He 
told me, coming home, that he hoped the people 
saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, 
and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon 
Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and 
blind men see." 

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them 
this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny 
Tim was growing strong and hearty. 

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, 
and back came Tiny Tim before another word was 
spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his 



288 DICKENS 

stool beside the fire : and while Bob, turning up his 
cuffs — as if, poor fellow, they were capable of be- 
ing made more shabby — compounded some hot mix- 
ture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it 
round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, 
Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratch- 
its went to fetch the goose, with which they soon 
returned in high procession. 

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought 
a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phe- 
nomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of 
course ; and, in truth, it was something very like it 
in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready 
beforehand in a little saucepan), hissing hot; Mas- 
ter Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; 
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce ; Martha 
dusted the hot plates ; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him 
in a tiny corner of the table; and the two young 
Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting 
themselves, and mounting guard, upon their posts, 
crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should 
shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. 
At last, the dishes were set on, and grace was said. 
It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. 
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, 
prepared to plunge it into the breast ; but when she 
did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing 
issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all 
around the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by 



CRIER UP OF LOVING KINDNESS 289 

the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the 
handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah! 

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't 
believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its 
tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the 
theme of universal admiration. Eked out by apple 
sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient din- 
ner for the whole family ; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit 
said with great delight (surveying one small atom 
of bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at 
last ! Yet every one had had enough, and the young- 
est Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and 
onion to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being 
changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the 
room alone — too nervous to bear witness — to take 
the pudding up, and bring it in. Suppose it should 
not be done enough! Suppose it should break in 
turning out! Suppose somebody should have got 
over the door of the backyard and stolen it, while 
they were merry with the goose — a supposition at 
which the two young Cratchits became livid! All 
sorts of horrors were supposed. 

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding 
was out of the copper. A smell like a washing day ! 
That was the cloth. A smell like an eating house 
and a pastry cook's next door to each other, with 
a laundress's next door to that ! That was the pud- 
ding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — 
flushed but smiling proudly — with the pudding like 



290 DICKENS 

a speckled cannon ball, so hard and firm, blazing 
in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and 
bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. 

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, 
and calmly, that he regarded it as the greatest suc- 
cess achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. 
Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her 
mind, she would confess she had her doubts about 
the quantity of flour. Everybody had something 
to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was 
at all a small pudding for a large family. It would 
have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would 
have blushed to hint at such a thing. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was 
cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. 
The compound in the jug being tasted, and consid- 
ered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the 
table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. 
Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth 
in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half 
a one ; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family 
display of glass. Two tumblers and a custard cup 
without a handle. 

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, 
as well as golden goblets would have done; while 
Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the 
chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. 
Then Bob proposed: 



CRIER UP OF LOVING KINDNESS 291 

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God 
bless us." 

Which all the family re-echoed. 

"God bless us every one," said Tiny Tim, the 
last of all. 

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his 
little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in 
his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep 
him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken 
from him. . . . 

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob. "I give you Mr. 
Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast !" 

"The Founder of the Feast, indeed !" cried Mrs. 
Cratchit, reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd 
give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I 
hope he'd have a good appetite for it." 

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas 
Day!" 

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said 
she, "on which one drinks the health of such an 
odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. 
You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better 
than you do, poor fellow!" 

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer. "Christmas 
Day." 

"I'll drink his health for your sake, and the 
day's," said Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life 
to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New 



292 DICKENS 

Year ! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have 
no doubt." 

Charity, peace, good will, that is the note struck, 
with unfeigned sincerity, and it is the ground-note 
in the work of Charles Dickens. 



CHAPTER IX 

A Last Word 

ONE hears it frequently said that Dickens does 
not appeal to the rising generation, that our 
young folk do not read him with interest and ap- 
preciation. Investigation has convinced me that the 
statement hardly represents the facts. That those 
who are now beginning to come into touch with 
letters often prefer the book of the hour, the cur- 
rent novel, to any examination of the work of a 
writer whose stories lie behind us more than a gen- 
eration, may be granted. The age of the grammar 
school, and that of high school, if not college, has 
a natural inclination toward literature strictly of 
our day, nor is the taste an unhealthy one in so far 
as it reflects a desire to see our time mirrored in 
fiction. To wish to get a picture of one's own pe- 
riod in the fiction which is written is indeed com- 
mendable. 

But it is my experience that, this bias once over- 
come, young people like Dickens when they try him, 
and as a rule are surprised to find him so enjoyable, 
so "modern," as they sometimes express it. His 

293 



294 DICKENS 

appeal to them is very strong, if only the edition 
in which he is offered be attractive, and the new 
reader be not asked to take a ponderous, dust-cov- 
ered volume from an upper shelf, bearing all the 
marks of neglect. And it is no wonder the appeal 
is there, since the fundamentals of human nature 
are heartsomely presented in these pages, in spite 
of the quaint oddities of the England seen by Dick- 
ens so long ago, and intensified by his individual 
treatment. 

Of course, folk are still to be found, though now 
an honorable and fast diminishing minority, who re- 
member Dickens in the flesh, as he appeared at the 
time of his second series of readings in the United 
States. Such fortunate mortals were brought up on 
his books, recall the magic of his appeal when it 
was contemporary, and fondly cherish the memory 
of the man whose works are even now their chief 
literary delight. But all such will soon pass from 
the stage. Those of middle years or moving to- 
ward elderly, who find pleasure in the Dickens 
books, are a goodly company, it is certain. The test 
of current sales settles that. 

An examination into the matter of editions shows 
that this writer is not only holding his own, but 
gaining from year to year; more and more expen- 
sive sets of his work are appearing, and the attitude 
of the publishers, a sure indication of vogue, is 
unmistakably enthusiastic. Dickens to-day outsells 



A LAST WORD 295 

Scott and Thackeray so decidedly as to make them 
seem unpopular in comparison with him. There is 
a steadier demand for his books than for those of 
any other story-tellers except for the temporary 
vogue of some current writer who is in demand 
for a year or so and then rapidly falls into innocuous 
desuetude. So far as we may judge upon the basis 
of criticism which looks back a generation and seeks 
to appraise values and influence, Dickens's chance 
to live and renew his effect upon mankind as the 
years pass away, was never brighter than it is at 
the present time. He has already demonstrated tri- 
umphantly that he is something more than a Mid- 
Victorian story-teller of great influence with his 
contemporaries. We can at least say that his claim 
upon our suffrages has been recognized by a gener- 
ation beyond his own, and that another yet to come 
bids fair to respond to the same magic. And surely 
this is for congratulation. That a writer who is 
not only a master of mirth and tears but a reformer 
and educator who in his teachings, by his eloquent, 
graphic words, did much to improve the social condi- 
tions of the England of his day, should thus have a 
steady appeal for a great company of readers, even 
after the particular scenes and types and social facts 
he drew have passed from cognizance, begets cheer- 
ful reflections with regard to the healthy reaction of 
the community to largeness and nobility of literary 
accomplishment. It is well that the world should 



296 DICKENS 

respond to genius, when it comes this way ; but also 
is it well when that genius is allied with high pur- 
pose and the most helpful social results. The twin 
appeal of Dickens, as I have tried to show, is as 
author and man ; and he is likely to be kept in per- 
petual affectionate remembrance quite as much for 
the good he did as for the gifts with which he was 
dowered. One with such gifts and aims could not 
fail to leave the world better than he found it. 

May it not be said that the realists, analyzers, 
and psychologists of our day owe a perennial debt 
of gratitude to a man like Dickens, with his simpler 
method, his broad, pictorial view, his unabashed, 
unhidden polemical instincts. The artist of litera- 
ture at present has a tendency to stand away from 
life as an observer, using the material it offers in 
a detached fashion: interested, but aloof. It was 
Dickens's way to go down into the arena, take his 
coat off for the struggle, laugh and cry with his 
characters — in a word, to mix with the scene and 
be fired by the warmth of the contact. That this 
seems a rather na'ive thing to do now, should not 
blind us to the advantages deriving from such hearty 
participation in the creative results. Methods change 
from age to age, and technic is a progressive mat- 
ter, since it means an increased expertness in achiev- 
ing a purpose which itself changes with the change 
of our ideals. But the breath of life is one; to 
deny it to the master of Gadshill were to fly in 



A LAST WORD 297 

the face of facts, both literary and social. As I 
have earlier noted, beneath all the surface idiosyn- 
crasies of his grotesques and drolls, giving them 
reality and permanency, the great passions of men 
and women are displayed : love and hate, ambition, 
greed, envy, charity, jealousy, and loving kindness. 
The reactions of his eccentric creatures are, after 
all, the reactions we all recognize as typical of man- 
kind then, now and forever. And it is exactly in 
this union of salient oddities with universal qualities 
that the strength of Dickens securely lies. It is not 
likely that Time, the great destroyer of literary rep- 
utations, as of all things human, can take away from 
him this appeal of common human experience, made 
vivid and humorous and heart-warming, because 
seen through the royal nature of the writer himself. 
It is a part of the business of those who would pre- 
serve sound literature for the joy it can give the 
world, and for its function as a great civilizing 
agency, to exploit and help to make permanent the 
influence of a man like Dickens. This should be 
alike the aim of the critic and the educator. The 
way to know Dickens is to read him; that is the 
one royal road to appreciation of him or of anybody 
else. In a critical, sophisticated time like ours, the 
danger is that so much critical apparatus shall gather 
about a major author that the author himself will 
never be reached. The type of person who talks 
glibly about some great writer, and is familiar with 



298 DICKENS 

what has been said about him, without possessing 
any real appreciation based on an examination of 
his works, is not unknown. Shakespeare has been 
so edited as almost to disappear: that is, Shake- 
speare, the Elizabethan, the practical playwright and 
actor-manager, the imperfect condition of whose 
manuscripts is proof positive of the haste with 
which he composed, and his indifference to posterity. 

Dickens is freely quoted from in this book, that 
the author may not be lost in the process of criti- 
cism. The hope is, that this partial reading may 
lead on to the slow, leisured assimilative enjoyment 
of all his stories in the proper chronologic arrange- 
ment. Thus, and thus only, can one come to see 
what manner of man he was, and get the full usu- 
fruct of his genius. 

The present writer once tried to embody a re- 
flection of personal feeling for Dickens in the fol- 
lowing piece of verse, which may be quoted here, 
in leaving the subject; the necessary concision and 
increased saliency of poetic expression will perhaps 
serve to sharpen the impression it is desired to 
convey : 

WITH DICKENS AT THE CHRISTMAS HEARTH 

Before the Christmas hearth I muse alone, 
And visions of the past, for grave and gay, 

Rise from the ruddy coals. Outside, the moan 
Of homeless winds is chidden by the lay 
Sweet-sung by children who keep holiday, 

Making the season's mood their very own. 



A LAST WORD 299 



And slowly, while I gaze and dream and grow 
Less lonesome, do the sights and sounds of earth 

Fade, and my fancy wanders to and fro 
With a great Master of lament and mirth 

Who waved his wand to gild the Long Ago. 

A Wondrous Company! Micawber smiles 

In spite of poverty; and Little Nell, 
Too frail a flower, travels her weary miles, 

Then falls on sleep ; and David tries to tell 

The trials of the young ; now Pickwick's spell 

Makes laughter easy ; on a pinnacle 
Of sacrifice sits Carton, 'midst war's wiles. 

Now the air sweetens, for those brothers twain, 
The blithesome Cheerybles, have preached their creed 

Of kindness ; honest Tapley hails again 
A world too pleasant ; while their horses speed, 
The Wellers make the welkin ring indeed ; 

Lo ! Dedlock House looms darkly through the rain. 

And look ! the tiny dressmaker limps by ; 
And she, eternal type of faithfulness, 

Dorrit, whom prisons do not daunt; her eye 
Is for her father ; next, in seaman's dress 
Quaint Captain Cuttle lifts his hook to bless 

His darlings ; Barkis at low tide must die. 

Drolls, villains, gentle folk of all degrees, 
Make populous the air, an hundred strong; 

Last comes, as fits the season, Scrooge, his knees 
A-tremble, till he harks the Christmas song 
Of Love, and knows that spite and greed are wrong, 

And how that charity is more than these. 

Master of human hearts ! No Christmas tide 
Whose chants are not the sweeter and whose cheer 

Is not more blest since Dickens lived and died ! 
The savor of his teaching makes each year 
Richer in homely virtues, doth endear 

Man unto man ; hence, shall he long abide. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



All the Year Round, Dickens as editor, 23. 

American Notes, 27. 

American Tours : the 1842 visit, 27 ; the 1867-8 visit, 29. 

Arabian Nights, 11. 

Arnold, Thomas of Rugby, 278. 

Art of Dickens : 22, 281 ; art affected by his divorce, 25 ; art in 
early writings, 68; art in Great Expectations, 207; art 
in short stories, 246 ; chapter on art, 247-68 ; art in char- 
acterization, 255; art in plot development, 267. 

Austen, Jane, 251, 261. 

Balzac, 245, 248. 
Barnaby Rudge, 68, 94. 
Beadwell, Maria, 17. 
Bennett, Arnold, 259. 
Birth of Dickens, 8. 

Bleak House, 13, 266, 273, 283 ; criticism, 164-65 ; extract from, 
165-76. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 32. 

Centenary of birth of Dickens, 3. 

Chancery Court, 164. 

Chapman and Hall, Dickens's publishers, 19. 

Characterization: power of, 66, 95-96, 125, 250-52, 264; of 
childhood in Dombey and Son, 105 ; in Our Mutual 
Friend, 230 ; in the Mystery of Edwin Drood, 245 ; 
caricatures, 252-56, 258; method of characterization, 
259-61 ; types portrayed, 280-81. 

Chatham, 11. 

Childhood of Dickens, 10-13. 

Children in Dickens: in David Copperfield, 125; child char- 
acters, 275-76. 

Chimes, The, 246, 283. 

Christmas, the spirit of, in Dickens's books, 246. 

Christmas Carol: criticism, 246, 283-85; extract from, 285-92. 

Clarissa Harlowe, 264. % 

Collins, Wilkie, 26, 29. 

Conrad, Joseph, 259. 

303 



304 INDEX 



Corn Laws, 269. 

Correggio compared with Dickens, 245. 
Cricket on the Hearth, 246, 283. 
Cruikshank, illustrator for Dickens, 258. 

David Copperfield: 8, 13, 30, 68, 249, 266; criticism of, 125-26; 
extract from, 126-64 ; pathos in, 263. 

Death and burial of Dickens, 31, 32. 

Deland, Margaret, contrasted with Dickens, 259. 

Devonshire Terrace, 21, 24. 

t)ickens : art of, 22, 281 ; art affected by his divorce, 25 ; art 
in early writings, 68; art in Great Expectations, 207; 
art in short stories, 246; chapter on his art, 247-68; art 
in characterization, 255; art in plot development, 267; 
birth, 8; centenary of birth, 3; power of characteriza- 
tion, 66, 95-96, 125, 250-52, 264 ; of childhood in Dombey 
and Son, 105; in Our Mutual Friend, 230; in the Mys- 
tery of Edwin Drood, 245 ; caricatures, 252-56, 258 ; 
method of characterization, 259-61 ; types portrayed, 
280-81; childhood of Dickens, 10-13; death and burial 
of Dickens, 31, 32 ; contrasted with Margaret Deland, 
259; divorce, 17, 24; dramatic element, 67, 88, 90, 164-65, 

197, 253, 257 ; shown in Our Mutual Friend, 230 ; melo- 
dramatic tendency, 244; views on education, 176; Eng- 
lish of Dickens, 266; father, 8-10; humor, 28, 35, 66, 90, 

198, 230, 231, 245, 256, 261; in Dombey and Son, 114; as 
lecturer, 26; marriage, 18; as moralist, 252; Moses 
Dickens, 15 ; mother, 10 ; mystery in his writings, 244, 
249; as novelist, 248; pathos, 67, 90, 231, 249, 262-64, 282; 
in David Copperfield, 135; personality, 22; plot, 244-45; 
poetry, 249; popularity, 1, 293-98; compared with that 
of Shakespeare, 2 ; with Thackeray, 3 ; as reformer, 
269-81 ; in education, 271-73 ; in penal institutions, 273 ; 
in education, 274-80 ; satire, 230, 245, 269, 274 ; in Little 
Dorrit, 182; short stories of, 246; Smollett's influence, 
11; Sterne's influence, 11; as story-teller, 248; style, 
4-6, 23, 266-67, 297; growth in technic, 94, 249, 266; 
Swift's influence, 11; sympathy in his work, 262; 
Thackeray and Dickens compared, 22, 29, 32, 251, 261, 
265, 285, 295; will of Dickens, 32; youth of Dickens, 
13-18. 

Dinner in Poplar Walk, 15. 
Disraeli, 257. 

Divorce of Dickens, 17, 24. 

Dombey and Son: 95; humor in, 114; criticism, 105; extract 
from, 105-125. 



INDEX 305 

Don Quixote, 11. 

Dramatic element : 67, 88, 90, 164-65, 197, 253, 257 ; shown in 
Our Mutual Friend, 230; melodramatic tendency, 244. 

Education, views on, 176. 
Eliot, George, 15. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 257. 
English of Dickens, 266. 

Father of Dickens, 8-10. 

Fechter, the actor, 31. 

Fielding, 11. 

Flaubert, 251. 

Forster, John, biographer of Dickens, 12, 24, 68, 89, 245, 258, 

267. 
French Revolution, 197. 

Gadshill, 4, 21, 24, 31, 230, 296. 
Galsworthy, John, 259. 
Garrick Club, 30. 
Gibson, Charles Dana, 259. 
Gladstone, 32. 
Goldsmith, 11. 
Goncourt, 267. 

Great Expectations: 68, 249, 267, 283; criticism of, 207-8; ex- 
tract from, 207-30. 
Gulliver's Travels, 33. 

Hard Times: 271, 274; criticism of, 176; extract from, 176-81. 

Harris, William T., 271. 

Henry Esmond compared to Tale of Two Cities, 197. 

Herrick, 259. 

Historical Romance : 94 ; Tale of Two Cities as historical ro- 
mance, 196. 

Hogarth family: Mr. Hogarth, editor of Morning Chronicle, 
15 ; Mary, Catherine and Georgina, 16 ; Georgina, 24. 

Homer, 1. 

Household Words, Dickens as editor, 23, 30. 

House of Commons, 13, 14. 

Howells, William Dean, 251, 252, 259, 261. 

Hughes. James L., 271-72. 

Humor of Dickens : 28, 35, 66, 90, 198, 230, 231, 245, 256, 261 ; 
in Dombey and Son, 114. 

Irving, Washington, 246. 



306 INDEX 



James, Henry, 259. 
Jeffrey, Lord, 263. 

Keim and Lumet, French critics' sketch of Dickens, 16. 
Kingsley, Charles, 262. 

Lang, Andrew, 265, 266. 

Lecturer, Dickens as, 26. 

Lincoln's Inn Field, 1. 

Lines by author, 298. 

Little Dorrit: 8, 126, 266, 273, 283; criticism of, 182; extract 

from, 182-196. 
London, 1, 11, 248, 257. 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 252. 
Lowell, Amy, 252. 
Lytton, Bulwer, 257. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babbington, 263, 266. 

Mackensie, 264. 

Man of Feeling, 264. 

Marriage of Dickens, 18. 

Marshalsea, The, 12. 

Martin Chuzzlewit: 25, 27, 280; criticism of, 95-96; extract 

from, 96-105. 
Master Humphrey's Clock, 89. 
Maupassant, Guy de, 251. 
Middlemarch, 15. 
Mill on the Floss, 15. 
Moralist, Dickens as, 252. 
Morning Chronicle, 16. 
Moses Dickens, 15. 
Mother of Dickens, 10. 
Mystery in Dickens, 244, 249. 
Mystery of Edwin Drood: 20, 31, 207, 271, 280; criticism, 

244-46. 

Nast, Thomas, 259. 

Nicholas Nickleby: 68, 249, 261, 270, 271, 283; criticism, 82; 

extract, 82-88. 
Novelist, Dickens as, 248. 

Old Curiosity Shop: 1, 13, 68, 89-90; criticism, 90-94; extract, 

256-263. 
Old Monthly Magazine, 15. 
Oliver Twist: 13, 25, 68, 255, 262, 267, 270, 283; criticism, 69; 

extract, 70-82. 



INDEX 307 



Our Mutual Friend: 15, 29, 249; criticism, 230-31; extract, 
231-43. 

Paris, 248. 

Pathos: 67, 90, 231, 249, 262-264, 282; in David Copperfield, 
135. 

Personality, 22. 

Phiz, cartoonist for Pickwick Papers, 19. 

Pickwick Papers: 14, 19, 29, 249, 250, 268, 270, 282; criticism 
of, 33-36; extract from, 36-67; appearance of, 34; com- 
pared with Tom Jones, 35. 

Plot in Dickens, 244-45. 

Poetry in life, 249. 

Poets' Corner, 32. 

Popularity of Dickens: 1, 2-6, 293-98; compared with that of 
Shakespeare, 2 ; with that of Thackeray, 3. 

Portsmouth Street, 1, 8, 11. 

Reade, Charles, 251, 262. 

Realism, 249, 255. 

Reforms of Dickens: 269-81 ; in education, 271-273, 274-80; in 

penal institutions, 273. 
Richardson, 11, 264. 
Robinson Crusoe, 11, 33. 
Rochester, 11, 32. 
Romance, 244, 249; in Great Expectations, 208. 

Satire: 230, 245, 269, 274; in Little Dorrit, 182. 

Scenes from Clerical Life, 15. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 251, 295. 

Seymour, cartoonist for Pickwick Papers, 19. 

Shakespeare, 1, 250, 298. 

Shaw, Bernard, 33. 

Short stories of Dickens, 246. 

Short story, definition of, 247-48. 

Sketches by Bos, 14, 15, 33, 249, 268. 

Smith, Jessie Wilcox, 259. 

Smollett's influence on Dickens, 11. 

Staplehurst, 29. 

Sterne's influence on Dickens, 11. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 31, 266. 

Story-teller, Dickens as, 248. 

Style of Dickens : 2-4, 23, 266-67, 297 ; growth in technic, 9^, 

249, 266. 
Swift's influence on Dickens, 11. 
Sympathy in Dickens's work, 262. 



308 INDEX 



Tale of Two Cities: 13, 25, 94, 273; criticism of, 196-98; ex- 
tract from, 197-207 ; compared with Romola, 197. 

Tavistock House, 21, 24. 

Thackeray and Dickens compared, 22, 29, 32, 251, 261, 265, 285, 
295. 

Trollope, Anthony, 245, 251, 261. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 33. 

Warner, Charles Dudley, 246. 
Westminster Abbey, 32. 
Wharton, Edith, 259. 
Will of Dickens, 32. 

Yarmouth, 266. 
Yates, Edmund, 30. 
Youth of Dickens, 13-18. 



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